


Buried Demons

by Polarnight_Fox



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: !contains SPOILERS!, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Drama, Kidnapping, Multi, Possible Character Death, Possibly Thriller (but basically it's up to you to decide if it is or not), Strong Female Characters, Trauma, Violence, does its best to be canon compliant, long story, single mom, solving cases, strong emotions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:29:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28944459
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polarnight_Fox/pseuds/Polarnight_Fox
Summary: Lisbon and Jane have been married for over six years now, laying their discrepancies at rest. But then something happens that shows them how fragile their agreement, not to argue about Teresa's work with the FBI, is.In the aftermath Teresa struggles to fulfill her duties at work while being a single mom, yet soon she wishes this would be her only reason to worry.- - - -CAUTION: spoiler for this fic (though actually not that much as it's in the tags, lol)Jane is a part of this story. He's coming back. I seriously don't think he would just leave his family behind.Just thought I might point that out.Have a good time!
Relationships: Patrick Jane & Teresa Lisbon, Patrick Jane/Teresa Lisbon
Comments: 22
Kudos: 28





	1. An Afternoon at the Lake

**Author's Note:**

> Well, what can I say? A while ago I started to rewatch The Mentalist, and ended up binging the whole thing. Can't understand why I didn't like it that much when it was first aired, but then again, I was quite a bid younger then and I suppose the RJ stuff scared the heck out of me. It's still creepy for a matter of fact, only in a good way, kinda. (Ok, this sounds weird now, but I guess you get what I mean, lol.)
> 
> But what really got me hooked on the series was the interaction of Lisbon and Jane - I just can't get ENOUGH of it.  
> So with the end of season 7 I found myself craving for more. And even though the series tries to tie off all ends, to me there are still some unanswered problems that weren't solved just by the two of them marrying each other.  
> Therefore instead of starting all over with season one I decided to write a FanFic - what in the end led me to start rewatching the whole thing once again (a vicious cycle I have no clue how to escape just yet).
> 
> So here's my take on what happens after the events of the series, I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> PLEASE NOTE:  
> This is my first time posting a story in English so I hope it doesn't all sound like gibberish to you. If you find some serious mistakes and feel like it, pls point them out, I'd love to improve!

#  An Afternoon at the Lake

"Patrick! No, Patrick wait!", she shouted, hurrying out the door and down the porch after him. 

"JANE!!" But he had already crossed the lawn and was starting the engine of the silver bucket he called RV. "Jane", Teresa repeated whispering, knowing it was too late. The airstream was rolling down the driveway, leaving her standing there in her indoor slippers on the wet grass all on her own.

He was gone. Again.

A while later she heard the patio door falling shut and turned around to see her daughter standing on the wooden porch. "Megs", she muttered, waking from her trance of disbelief. 

Ignoring the wet lawn she went back to the house. She favoured her left leg, cursing herself for putting too much pressure on her injured side just a few minutes ago.

"Why did daddy leave?" Megs' eyes were big and looking up at her mom as if she had all the answers in the world.

"To protect us, sweetie. At least that's what he says." Teresa put her hand around her daughter's shoulder. "I'll make us some breakfast, shall I?"

Smiling at Megs' soft 'please!', she took off her wet slippers before entering the house again. "Peanutbutter and jelly, dear?"

Megs pulled a pout. "Tuesday is pancake day!"

"Pancake day?", Teresa asked bewildered. But as her daughter nodded, she gave her a smile and said: "Then I should better make some pancakes!"

But after she'd spent at least ten minutes desperately looking through all the kitchen cupboards and shelves, she slowly started to dread that her instinct had been right. She swallowed, cursing her husband in her mind, then turned to Megs again.

"I suppose he makes them from scratch?", she asked, trying to keep her nerves.

Megs, who'd been watching her mother curiously all the time, nodded again. "Yes"

"'Guess that's why they taste so good", Teresa mumbled to herself, louder she continued: "Do you know how?"

Megs shook her head. Of course. How should a six year old know how to make pancakes? That was her parent's job. Patrick's job. Teresa sighed. Now what? The last time she had made pancakes felt ages ago. And then she had the lifesaving idea. Only where did she leave that darn cellphone? She leaned back against the counter to take some of the pressure off her right leg.

"Do you need help?", Megs asked, "Daddy always lets me help!"

"That would be wonderful, sweetie. I'll just go find my phone so I can look up a recipe." At least she finally remembered that she'd put it down on the living room shelf right when Patrick had figured out that she was planning to go to work this day.

"Damn it!", she muttered as a cold shiver ran down her back. She'd totally forgotten about work. Picking up her phone, Teresa saw that Cho had tried to call her. She must've been standing outside starring after the RV when the phone rang.

Teresa took a deep breath, sat down on the edge of the couch and swiped across the number to call back. It took a while till she heard the familiar 'Cho'.

"Hi Boss", she started, and after pausing for a moment continued: "I'm sorry, I can't come to work yet, I took a wrong step this morning and my leg hurts again." 

"Okay"

Teresa looked around the room, knowing that her old colleague wouldn't ask questions, but she still couldn't manage to fob him off like that. "Damn it, Cho, it's not my darn hurting leg that's keeping me - don't get me wrong, it's gotten worse this morning, but that's not the main reason, I can't come in today. It's Patrick. He has left." Having rushed out these sentences, she paused, but there was only silence answering her from the other side of the phone. Finally Teresa spoke again. "I've got to look after Megs. At least for today. I'll come in as soon as I can, I promise!"

"Okay"

"Thank you, Cho, I mean it, I'm sorry!"

"You've said that." There was even more silence, then her boss added: "Lisbon, take your time to get well. I want you here when you're up to it. Not a day sooner."

She was about to protest as the door of the living room opened and Megs came in."Is that Cho?", she asked, her eyes round. Teresa nodded, as the girl crossed the room to get to the couch her mom was sitting on. "Hi Cho!", the girl shouted into the phone.

Teresa heard her boss chuckle on the other side. "I've got to work, Lisbon. Tell Megs I said 'Hi'." And he hung up. Lisbon looked at the phone for a while, thankful that Cho hadn't asked any questions. He wasn't anyone to tell your life's story to but he was a great boss.

"Cho says 'Hi'", Teresa told her daughter at the same time as the girl said: "You need to hurry, mommy, or we'll be late for kindergarten!"

Kindergarten?! She'd forgotten about that as well. Checking the time on her phone she asked: "What about pancakes at A&Ws?"

"Okay, but daddy's taste better."

"I promise you, A&W is better than anything I can do. Have you packed your stuff for kindergarten?"

Megs nodded. 

"Great."

Drive-through breakfast didn't save them from being late, but at least they arrived at an acceptable time.

"Love you, sweetie", Teresa said, smiling when Megs was giving her a goodbye hug. 

"Love you too, mommy!" And then the girl ran up the stairs to the entrance door, her dark brown ponytail swinging wildly from one side to the other.

Teresa stayed there, leaning against the Chevy, and watched till the big door swung shut behind her daughter. Then she limped back onto the driver's seat, took her notebook out of the center console and was about to check the notes she had taken regarding that last case. The daughter of a criminal prosecutor. Most likely killed by her jealous boyfriend, but something had felt odd about that case. Surely Patrick would've been able to point it out right after changing two words with the mother - or having a look at the girls room - or… whatever. But he had left the FBI years ago. And now he'd left her too.

She closed her eyes. This wasn't her case anymore. At least not until she was back out of sick leave. Nevertheless it was very likely that the team had already closed it. Sighing she skipped the pages she'd already written on and started to write down what she would have to do that day.

This task showed her how much Patrick had handled for her. She'd known that already, she'd seen it many times in the last six years and especially during the last couple days. And she knew that she'd relied on him doing so.

She sighed again and checked her list. Shopping would have to come first. 

Dreading the mass of people, Teresa made her way through the morning rush hour and headed to the closest Walmart her phone could find.

It was a pain. She could've dealt with her hurting leg well enough but somehow it seemed that all of Austin's housewives had decided to do their weekly shopping on this Tuesday morning. A full shopping cart that tended to go to the right and what felt like an hour at the checkout later, that she had spent standing behind a mother and her crying baby, Teresa was packing the groceries into the back of her car. Her leg was throbbing constantly and everytime she put pressure on it, her ankle sent a stabbing pain up her nervous system. 

Nevertheless by now she wasn't worrying about what she was supposed to cook for Megs and herself during the upcoming week anymore. 

After climbing back onto the driver's seat she had to agree with Cho. She wasn't ready to get back out in the field yet. Did that mean her argument with Patrick could have been avoided? Had he been right?

But no, his standpoint was way more fundamental than this. He had been telling her to quit. To stop the hunt. To stop doing what she'd always done. What she felt was her duty, and what gave her the feeling of being useful. Making sure that her daughter grew up in a world where nobody, who committed a crime, could just get away with it.

She closed her eyes. There was no sense in going through this again. She'd known his opinion about her job even before they'd married. But somehow she'd thought it would work with him staying at home instead of watching her at work everyday. And hadn't it? For more than six years?

But that car crash had changed all that. She'd felt it, when she saw him sitting in the chair next to her hospital bed, Megs sleeping on his lap. He must've felt like he'd lost her. Teresa sighed. Back in that car she'd thought the same. Killed by a drunk driver. She would've left Megs like her mother had left her. Not willingly, but still.

Rubbing her face, she tried to bring her thoughts back to the here and now. The pain in her leg was getting bearable again and it was time to bring those groceries home. 

Luckily the traffic wasn't as bad as it had been that morning and driving itself didn't put that much strain on her leg even though it took her some time to get out to the countryside to where Patrick had bought that piece of land so many years ago.

Time flies when you've got lots of work ahead of you, and it wasn't any different for Teresa, who - not being used to standing still and by now secretly at war with her injured leg - was trying to finish everything that was on her list. 

Unpacking the groceries, doing Megs' laundry, and ironing her own - things she would be able to wear to work, once her leg and taking care of Megs would let her. Other moms managed to take care of their kids and go to work  **and** maintain their household. Why not her?

And yet, one tiny part of her hoped that Patrick would change his mind. That he would come back to her. She'd noticed that when she'd been sitting down to give her leg a break and had typed his number into her phone without thinking about what she was doing. She'd stopped short of calling him, though. Some other part in her was still too angry with him to call him. He thought by going away he could make her drop her job with the FBI and was basically trying to force her to do so. All in the name of being worried for her. Like being unemployed would keep her safe from car crashes or maniacs running around with unregistered guns.

She gave her phone a deadly look and put it on the kitchen table in front of her. Only to pick it up just a heartbeat later - was it really 1p.m. already?

One proper look at the display told her that it was. 12:57. She stuffed her phone into the backpocket of her jeans and was limping over the lawn just two minutes later. She would not be too late to pick up her daughter from kindergarten. 

And she wasn't. As a matter of fact she was six minutes early. She climbed out of the car, just to lean against the fender. This time her leg had hurt the whole time while she'd been driving.

Other cars arrived at the parking lot and adults got out and entered the building. One after the other. Teresa cursed silently then made her way over to the entrance door herself.  _ This isn't high school _ , she told herself,  _ proper parents pick their kids up  _ inside  _ the kindergarten building _ .

But her heart sank, when she found herself standing in the hallway. In which group was Megs again? Eagles or Wolves? Or was it Coyotes? Yes, it was! In front of the door with the sandy haired canine stood a chubby woman Teresa recognized. She'd been at her place in the Painted Bunting neighbourhood to pick up Megs, maybe two times? 

The woman's son and Megs were friends. And his name was...? Luke? Liam? Leo! Leo Ellis. 

"Hello Teresa!", Mrs. Ellis had seen her too and was waving her nearer. "It's nice to see you! Are you off work, or how come you're picking little Meghan up instead of Patrick?"

Trying to hide the pain that she felt when taking the last few steps, Teresa put a smile on her face mirroring that of the woman. "Nice to see you as well. Nah, Patrick isn't feeling too well and I'm on sick leave due to a little injury. Nothing to make a fuss about, though!", she added as Mrs. Darwing was starting to look worried. 

"You sure?" Then she got a bit closer to Teresa. "You're working for the  _ FBI _ , aren’t you?"

"I am", she answered, throwing a look through the half open door. They were packing. Great. She wouldn't be able to smile, greet the other parents, and pretend her leg didn't hurt for much longer. 

"So … did you get shot??", Mrs. Ellis whispered.

Teresa turned to the other woman, hardly managing not to roll her eyes. "No. It was a car accident."

"Oh", Mrs. Ellis moved just a tiny step back, apparently she'd noticed that Teresa wasn't in the mood to secretly chit-chat about her job. Good.

Luckily this was the moment the kids seemed to have finished packing up their stuff and -

“You know that Meghan can gladly come to us for an afternoon or an overnight-stay, if you’ve got too much to do, or simply need a little time to yourself?” 

Teresa had just answered that it was a very nice offer, but that she was fine, when the children finally left their classroom. 

Megs hadn’t said much on their way home, even though Teresa had tried her best to start a conversation with her. She’d asked her daughter about what they’d done at school today and told her about a few guys at Walmart’s, who had been shopping wearing horseback riding chaps.

And her daughter had answered her, but being a cop and a mom Teresa had felt that her heart wasn’t in it. Instead Megs had looked out of the window and watched the landscape flashing past them. 

Only when they were pulling into the driveway, she seemed to wake up a bit. But after a look around the yard she was sinking back into her seat. “When is daddy coming back?”

Teresa sighed silently. Of course. Then she turned the rearview mirror to be able to look into her daughter's eyes. “I don’t know, sweetheart. I don’t know.” Megs only nodded before she opened the door to get out of the car.

They spent their afternoon in a weird kind of non-silence. They talked, yes, but like in the car, Megs’ mind seemed to be absent, not in a mad way but still. Teresa, though, was getting angrier with Patrick with every passing hour but felt it would be wrong to make her daughter feel that she was.

So instead of spending some quality time with her daughter, Teresa brought in more wood for the fireplace - since it isn’t always warm in Texas, especially not in January - made dinner for the two of them, and finally put on the Harry Potter audiobook, Grace had send Megs for her sixth birthday, when it was time for her to go to bed. 

The next four days didn’t go much better. Megs seemed to understand that her father hadn't just left for a few hours and Teresa felt the pain of being the parent who is always away at work.

She loved her daughter more than anything in the world and knew about her favorite color - a bright green - and that she was practicing on perfecting her cartwheel, but not that she'd lost her interest in pinguins and instead had picked up horses as her favorite animals now. Apparently one of her fellow pupils at kindergarten was living on a farm their class had visited a few months ago and Megs had fallen in love with those big four legged animals. "They even let us ride one! It was a really old horse, they said, that's why it had so many white hairs in his brown hair. Dad took photos, I think." Teresa had never seen those photos. Or at least she couldn't recall doing so.

This was basically the only topic Megs seemed to want to talk about from herself. But their conversation about horses came to a bitter end when Megs said: "Daddy promised he would talk to you about riding lessons. But you were always so busy."

Getting bored of staying at home while her daughter was at kindergarten, Teresa finally went back to the Austin FBI bureau on Thursday morning. She'd assured Cho that she felt well enough and was only there to get ahead with her paperwork anyway, so her boss grudgingly let her do so. 

Filing reports for prosecutors usually wasn't her favorite part of the job but having them delayed for two weeks now because of her being on sick leave, she was glad to finally finish her job on the cases and making it possible for the justice system to pursue them further.

Nevertheless, it felt wrong not to head out to interview witnesses when Polark did so on his own. They were on a new case now, that Cho hadn't briefed her on - most likely because he wished her to stay inside the FBI building, just as she had done in that moment. She had tried not to listen to her colleagues talking about the new case but a few lines of their discussion had made her prick up her ears. Something about a fire burning down a math laboratory somewhere out of Austin - why the FBI was getting involved in it Teresa didn't catch. 

But her boss must had noticed her gazing at the leaving agents, since he came to her desk only a minute later, that tiny hint of a smile on his face. 

"We'll be off that case in a blink once we get a new one in. DEA called for assistance but, as you might guess, now that we're there they don't seem to want us anymore." Cho had said while leaning casually against her desk.

Teresa didn't answer, but the silence between the two of them was broken shortly afterwards, when Wylie got up. “I’m just getting myself a burrito from round the corner, would any of you like one as well?”

“N-”, Teresa began, when Cho answered: “Yes, thank you”

Wylie nodded as he put on his jacket. “Ok. I’ll bring one back for you, boss. You’re sure you don’t want one, Lisbon?”

“Yeah - no. I’ll have to go pick up Megs in like fifteen minutes anyway. But thanks.” She gave the man a smile.

“Well, I can get one for her too if you like.”

Teresa felt her smile growing wider. “That would be great thank you!” Megs liked street food and this way Teresa was saved from cooking lunch.

"That makes four then", Wylie said, nodding to his two colleagues. "I’ll be back in a few minutes!"

Their corner fell silent once more after he'd left, but just when Teresa had pulled her attention back to those case files on her computer Cho said: "Jane's gone then?"

Unprepared for the question it took her a short moment to answer. "Yes", she said then, "And there has been no word from him in the last two days. Didn't try to call him either, though."

Cho nodded and with a "Mhm" he went back to his own desk, which stood with those of his team, as he said he didn't like a wall and a long hallway to be between them and him. 

Teresa found herself looking at his back, her eyebrows knitted. Only sometimes she wished he would offer his surroundings more insight into his thoughts. Thanks to his question, though, it wasn't possible for her to pull herself together and finish that file in the following five to ten minutes. So instead of that she packed her belongings, put on her jacket and said bye to Cho.

She met Wylie in the foyer of the building. When she asked the man what she owed him for the meal, he only waved off with a shy smile and told her not to worry about it. 

Teresa's spirits were somewhat lifted after picking up Megs from kindergarten. She was just a few minutes late but she must've missed Mrs. Ellis - something she had considered impossible before. The woman was an overprotective mom who, figuring that Teresa was caring for Megs on her own right now, seemed to be trying to take her under her wing as well and was ignoring Teresa's more and more desperate attempts to put some distance between them. 

Luckily Megs had been waiting right outside the entrance door with a teacher who had stayed with her to make sure the girl wouldn't be picked up by a stranger. Teresa thanked the lady when they left. And when she stopped at a parking lot so Megs and her could eat their now only half warm burritos, the girl ate hers with a bright smile.

It might have been for the fact that she’d managed to finish all of the paperwork at hand before noon the following Friday, that she chatted happily with Mrs. Ellis upon meeting her in the kindergarten hallway later. The woman had asked her if she wouldn’t like to come over to hers for dinner sometime and Teresa found herself replying what a nice invitation that was and that Megs and her would certainly like to visit the Ellis's once Teresa could find the time.

When she’d finally been able to say goodbye to the woman and Megs and her had gotten into the Chevy, Teresa turned around on the driver’s seat to say: “Guess we’re gonna be at home for the weekend - would you like to walk along the Lake Trail just a bit before we leave town?”

Megs eyes grew big and she nodded enthusiastically. Then she sank back into her seat. “But what about your injury?”

Teresa smiled at her. “Don’t worry, sweetheart, it’s way better already. My leg barely hurts anymore.”

“But … but then you’ll go back to work soon, won’t you? You’ll work full days?”

“Well, I don’t know what I will do, Megs. There’s got to be someone who is looking after you. Before that I c- … I won’t work full days before there isn’t someone. Okay?”

“Okay”, her daughter replied. But she didn’t look her in the eyes when she did so. 

“But for now, we’ll go take a walk along the Colorado, ok?” And upon seeing Megs nodding once more, Teresa turned around and started the engine of the car.

During the early afternoon Austin's streets were quite empty thankfully, but Teresa noticed that they would most likely hit rush hour full on, when they were heading home. But she pushed that thought away as soon as it had come to her mind. She would be spending some nice time with Megs now, no concern given to the traffic they might get stuck in later. After all, what was there to rush back to?

They parked close to River Street on the northern shore and made their way over to Lady Bird Lake past the building of the Mexican American Cultural Center. Even though Teresa had to turn up her collar against the cold breeze ist was a beautiful sunny day and she smiled, as she saw her daughter running down the slope to the creek. "Don't go in there, though, sweetheart", she laughed, "That's too cold!"

Megs looked up at her with an expression saying 'what you don't say!' but she only shrugged and came back up to the wooden bridge. "Just wanted to see if I could jump it. But it's too wide and there aren't any rocks."

Teresa thanked God that she hadn't tried to jump across the creek anyway and said: "Wise of you to choose the bridge." She smiled forcedly at one of the joggers who just passed very close by her trying to avoid an elderly couple. It was a Friday afternoon, of course the Trail was full of people.

Megs shrugged again. “Where are we going?”, she asked, taking her mothers hand.

“There’s a nice café just a few minutes from here. I thought we might get something to eat there and decide what we’re going to do on the weekend.”

“Great!” Still Teresa could see that the smile didn’t quite reach her daughter's eyes. But Megs seemed to like the café and chose a table on the window front overlooking the lake, once she had gotten her sandwich and Teresa her salad.

“Felie’s father was at kindergarten today”, Megs said when she’d barely sat down. “He told us about his job as a truck driver.”

Putting her jacket over the backrest of her chair, Teresa asked: “Really? Didn’t you say that someone else was talking about his parents job just yesterday?”

Megs nodded. “Trisha. Her mom was there too and she gave Crissy a really nice new haircut. She’s a hairdresser.”

Teresa suddenly wasn’t interested in her salad anymore. This was going in a very wrong direction. And when Megs said that it was her turn to talk about one of her parent’s jobs on Monday, Teresa swallowed, already knowing that she would have to disappoint her kid again. “I… I’m sorry, sweetie. I’m afraid I won’t be able to be there. You know that I’m back at work while you’re at kindergarten.”

“I know.” The girl nodded like a grown up. “I’ve talked to daddy about it and he said he would come to talk about his old job as a Medium and make sure everyone understands not to get fooled by someone like that. But … he’s not here. And I don’t think I can explain it as well.” She stopped and left Teresa wondering how she could comfort her daughter, when Megs suddenly continued: “That’s why I thought, I might talk about your job. Could I?”

Teresa was startled for a moment, then she answered: “Of course, sweetheart. I just won’t be able to be there. I’m sorry.”

“That’s ok. Aaron’s father couldn’t come either. He had to do a very important surgery. He’s a doctor that puts hearts from dead people in sick people’s bodies so they can live longer!”

“A cardiac surgeon. Wow. I hope they didn’t show you any pictures.”

“Naw. Aaron wanted to, but teacher Bill said, he better shouldn’t. But he handed a plastic heart around. It looked so weird!”

Teresa had finally started eating her salad and now tried to suppress a laugh. “Well, I suppose you haven’t seen anything but a normal heart shape drawing yet. It does look quite different from an actual heart, yeah.”

They were eating their lunch quietly for a while, till Megs, already having finished her sandwich, asked: “Could you help me to design a poster?”

“About my job? Sure. And you know what”, she added, “before we go home, we’ll stop at the FBI building and I’ll get you one of those baseball caps, you see on TV all the time, would you like that?”

“YES!” Megs eyes had gone big as saucers. “That’s so cool! They’re all gonna stare!”

“You betcha.”

Now that they had that planned, Teresa decided it would be best to make their way back to their car. After all, she’d already been afraid they might get stuck in traffic and being tired from all the paperwork this morning and the long week in general, she didn’t wish to get home too late. 

Nevertheless, when they had reached the piece of lawn in front of the Mexican American Cultural Center, Megs initiated a game of tag, that Teresa decided to join in even though quite a few people were watching them with amusement. 

But she stopped suddenly, when she saw a former co-worker of hers. She didn’t quite remember his name, but he’d worked on art crimes before he’d resigned to enjoy his well deserved pension. Blushing slightly, Teresa nodded, greeting him in return, and called Megs back to her, so they could finally go back to the car.

She had just taken her daughter by her hand, when a hitting sound made her freeze and let go of Megs hand again to instinctively reach for her gun. Someone shouted, then another person started screaming in terror. 

In the timeframe of a second Teresa looked around herself, right when another shot fell. “Mommy!”, Megs shouted, grabbing for her arm and she saw the struck person falling down, howling with pain. Saw her former co-worker laying on the ground not moving. But she didn’t hear the shot itself. She…

Her blood freezing in her veins, she realized what was going on. People were running in all directions, as yet another shot fell. Teresa grabbed for Megs' arm. She didn’t think properly anymore. Didn’t hear the people’s horrified cries and shouts, but ran over to the stone monument or sign that had the Cultural Center's name written across it, pulling her daughter with her. 

Somewhere close to them another shot hit the ground and then she could push her daughter down behind the wall of stone. Crouching down behind her, to shield Megs off as best she could, she noticed another woman in running clothes using the sign as shelter. Tears were running down her face. 

Teresa turned her eyes away. She felt herself shaking and wince, when yet another scream indicated that someone else had been hit. But she didn’t move. Didn’t move even after the next two shots hit somewhere close to the sign of stone. Megs had started crying loudly by then and Teresa was doing her best to comfort her while staying at this somewhat safe place. 

She didn’t know how long they’d been there, when Megs went silent. Didn’t know how long it had been, since the last shot fell. All she knew was that her daughter was ok and that somewhere around them people had just been shot by a sniper’s rifle. Right in the middle of Austin. Certainly someone must’ve called the police by now. Damn, she should’ve called the police! She could’ve - should’ve called Cho. Instead she was crouching here on the ground, shaking.

She reached for her phone, but Megs started sobbing again and grabbed her hand. Teresa sighed and decided she could still call Cho later. After all, he had certainly been notified already. “It’s ok, sweetheart. It's over. You're ok.", she mumbled soothingly.

Checking that the sign was high enough to still cover her when she was sitting upright, she changed her position to get the blood running back into her legs. But doing so meant to look at the path of the Lake Trail that ran in between the Cultural Center and the lake. Three people were laying there, struck down, motionless. She noticed Megs moving next to her and ignoring the pain that had returned into her leg, she pulled her onto her lap making sure to keep her eyes away from the bodies and started rocking her slightly. "Don't look, sweetheart. Don't look. Everything will be ok."

The first shock had left Teresa but now realization of the unbelievable hit in. Someone had just killed multiple people, beyond them a former FBI agent, in the middle of Austin. Around two pm. The afternoon was still sunny and bright as ever, but Teresa couldn't feel the sun anymore. The world around her had gone cold and grey.

Somewhere to her left the woman in sportswear moved too. "Is it over?", she asked, her voice breaking. "Has it stopped? For sure?"

Teresa looked up at her. "If you're thinking about leaving - please don't. I guess whoever did this will have left his position by now. But First Responders will be here soon. They'll-" she stopped as her phone rang. 

Still holding Megs she reached for her pocket and swiped over her phone using one hand to answer the call. It was Cho.

"Hi, boss", she said, glad that her voice was strong and clear.

"Lisbon. How is your leg doing? Are you listening to the news?"

She didn't answer. She could hear Cho opening a car's door in the background. "Lisbon?", he asked.

"I'm right there, boss.", Teresa answered, sure that it was this incident Cho was referring to. "At the Cultural Center. Megs and I are here. There are at least three people down. Oh, and EMT have just arrived.", She added as she saw the people in uniform rushing in, kneeling down besides the ones hit by the bullets.

Silence answered her. The first thing she heard was the engine of the SUV vrooming into life. Then Cho said: "The team is on it's way, too. This might be terrorists. We'll see you shortly." And he hung up.

Teresa sighed. Talking to Cho had made her feel better. She wasn't a victim any longer. She was at work. She put her phone away and rummaged through her handbag, searching for the badge she'd received back on Thursday.

She felt it between her fingers just in time, since she noticed the woman beside her getting ready to leave her place. Without letting go of Megs she turned around to her as best she could.

"Please don't make both of our lives worse, Ma'am.", she said and responding to the irritated look on the woman’s face she held up her badge, adding: "Special Agent Teresa Lisbon-Jane. FBI. We'll be needing your statement."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this rather long chapter :D (feels weird posting a smiley beneath a The Mentalist story, lol.) I hope you enjoyed it, even though the beginning definitely lacks some action.
> 
> My chapters usually end up being quite long so it tends to take a while for me to write them.  
> I've already finished 5 of them and will be posting them weekly, I guess, but after that I think it's gonna be like every fortnight or so, especially as I have exams coming up in February and need to study.


	2. A Hotel Room and a Baseball Cap

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there :D so I said Saturday or Sunday and yes, there are still a couple hours left until it's Monday! (At least where I'm living.) 
> 
> I really want to say how thankful I am for your support, I didn't expect that at all, so THANK YOU folks for the kudos and bookmarks, and I simply love reading comments. I am very interested in what you think about this story!
> 
> I'm so sorry, I didn't get to upload the new chapter earlier, only this week was unbelievable stressful - except for the revision of some scenes in this chapter, I actually didn't get to write a single page! (So yeah, I'm really glad about the schedule that I set for myself, even though it means quite a lot of waiting for you folks and I hope you hang in there.)
> 
> Thanks again, and here's Chapter Two:

# A Hotel Room and a Baseball Cap

Teresa was tapping the ground with her right foot, half of her attention turned away to the shore of the lake, where she had told that forensics intern to take Megs, till the bodies had been cleared away. Since then she had been listening to Cho interrogating the lady in jogging clothes, who, holding a blanket, some guy from EMT had given her, around her upper body against the cold, wasn’t saying anything Teresa wouldn't be able to tell her boss herself. But it was standard procedure to talk to every single witness.

“Okay, Ma’am. Thank you for your time”, Cho said, finally turning away from the woman. He and Teresa went back to their colleagues, getting some distance in between them and the witness. “Guess everyone else has left as soon as they could.”, Cho grumbled to Teresa.

“Not those guys”, Wylie added, pointing to the bystanders who’d heard of the attack and were crowding in to look at the dead bodies. Teresa frowned, she couldn’t understand it. What did they gain of that? Taking pictures of dead people who’d been shot while seeking recreation. It was disgusting.

She heard Cho utter a sound that fit her thoughts and Wylie mumbled something sounding very much like ‘Vultures’. 

Teresa was still looking at those turquoise spots of Megs knitted coat, she could make out behind the bushes that were hiding her daughter from view, when Polark returned to them. “Forensics say the shooter must've been in one of the buildings behind the Cultural Center.", he confirmed, causing her frown to deepen.

"What they don't say - they took that long to figure that out?" If she would've needed that much time to figure out where to get cover, Megs and her wouldn't be walking around anymore.

"Forensics", Cho commented and went a few steps away from the tree that was impairing his vision. "I think that’s a hotel back there, we just passed it when we were driving here. What do you say, Lisbon?"

Teresa's eyes followed his pointing hand gesture. "Worth a look, I guess." 

Her boss nodded. "Wylie, you go and check the upper floors of that building. Give me a call when you find something. And make sure the staff doesn't go home yet. We need to talk to them. If you don’t find anything, check that other tower right in front of it."

The man nodded sharply and left the group without further delay. Nearly seven years of working in the field from time to time had turned him into a good detective, but he still seemed uncomfortable with the dead bodies around him. Not that anyone could blame him, Teresa thought. She herself was still shaken by the event that had led to this crime scene. But looking after the blonde, striding across the lawn in front of the Cultural Center, she wondered whether she might be giving him less credit than he deserved. He had changed a lot since she had first met him. There was a sense of determination about him now, that hadn't always been there. 

Thinking about this, Teresa found that she was glad the man had finally allowed himself to get over Vega’s cruel death and get into a relationship with that sweet young woman from the IT division he had once been part of himself. Dating Daisy Brooks had given him that smile back that had been so unique to him, even if it wasn’t as bright as it had been before the horrible event.

"What would make a hitman kill several unrelated people?", Polark jolted her out of her thoughts, voicing what Teresa was wondering since looking at the scene from a police point of view.

"Money", Cho said, he had turned back to the dead bodies laying on the gravel path.

"But it's usually only one victim. Or two that belong together. This looks more like a mass shooting. It's unclean." Polark argued. "Lisbon? What do you think?"

Teresa didn't answer him at first. Instead she pulled her eyes away from the bushes behind the path and started investigating the bodies further. There were only two laying on the path behind the Cultural Center's stony sign now. One victim had been brought to the hospital, a teenage boy with a severe bullet wound, still they hoped to be able to save him. His bicycle was still laying right across the pathway. But two others, an elderly couple, were laying dead on the lawn.

She went over to the body of the former FBI-Agent. He'd fallen down backwards, his arms were laying in a weird angle to his body and his knees were bent to the left. She remembered his name now. Finley Gregson. She'd told Cho as soon as she'd known. The man had worked with Marcus Pike once. "I'd say he's been shot first. And this is a clean shot - right in the head. He must've been dead instantly." The shot had killed him not even a minute after they had made eye contact. She bit her teeth together. This was irrelevant now. 

"The next person hit had cried out. So no instantaneous death.", she continued and tried to recall how Patrick had helped witnesses with their memory. "I've seen her fall, it was this woman." She pointed over to the second body on the path. 

"The bullet hit her close to the heart anyway.", Cho said. "We'll have to wait for the coroner to confirm it, but I'd say it killed her quite soon."

Teresa nodded.

"Sloppy shot?", Polark muttered, "Weird thing for a hitman."

"Mhm…"

Teresa looked at her boss, waiting for him to elaborate on his thoughts, but went on as he didn’t do so. “When the second shot fell, everyone was running around. I think I heard a bullet hitting the gravel of the pathway just somewhere around here… Yes, and then the sound of a bicycle accident. That’s the third bullet that didn’t hit it’s target properly.”

She felt her heartbeat rising as she tried to remember more of what had happened. But she hadn’t seen much, crouching behind that sign of stone. It had shielded Megs and her, and thinking back to the horrifying minutes the two of them had spent there, made her want to take her daughter and leave this place as soon as possible. She looked back to the bushes and breathed out as she once again made out the girl’s bright coat behind them. She swallowed.

"I didn't see very much after that. I can't be certain, but they...", she pointed to the elderly couple, who were laying on the lawn close to the Cultural Center's sign, "they might have tried to get behind the sign, too." 

"Clean shots for the two of them. Too slow, I guess.", Cho said.

Teresa swallowed again and averted her eyes. If she hadn't had Megs with her - or even if she'd just remembered that she was an FBI agent and had pulled herself together, she might've been able to save the couple.

She felt Polark’s worried eyes on her and said to Cho: "It is odd. It seems like the killer had a good idea of who he wanted to shoot first and after they were dead he decided to go for everyone who was still in his range."

"'They' meaning Finley Gregson", Cho concluded, "Considering that the only other ones hit by a clean shot are a woman and a man over the age of seventy."

"Or it was simply a maniac with a professional rifle. A sniper gone mad and everyone here was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.", Polark argued.

“But there are so many better targets for an attack like that”, Teresa stated and turning her gaze westwards, she said, “Congress Avenue Bridge is just over there; people on a bridge won’t find cover as easily as they did here. And just think about how many targets he would have had, had he aimed for people on Sixth Street. Or if he’d just waited for that marathon, the ‘Fast Half’, there would be tons of people waiting for the runners at the State Capitol. No. I’ve got a feeling this was intended.”

“But why shoot others?”, Polark said, “Why didn't he take out his target and leave?”

Teresa was just about to answer, that she didn’t know, when Cho’s phone rang. He picked up with his usual curt ‘Cho’, nodded, then said: “We’re on our way.” To his two colleagues standing next to him he said: “Wylie found something.”

She didn’t like leaving Megs behind. Saying goodbye to her now, even for a short time felt wrong. She was supposed to protect her, but her job made her leave her daughter alone. She knew the forensics lady would be looking after the girl, but still, Megs wasn’t her kid.

But Teresa had a job to do and so she was focussing her attention on the hotel they had just entered. The entry hall was huge with several lounges and the stairs with their glass railing leading up to the second level right in the middle of it, just behind the reception desks. She was spotting quite a few security cameras already, which meant they should have a lot of material to look at.

Wylie was waiting for them just behind the entry. He had a member of the staff with him and when they reached them Teresa could read the sign on his chest saying ‘Thomas Clarkson, Security’. The dark skinned man towered over Wylie, talking sternly to the poor young fellow.

Wylie seemed relieved, when his team members arrived. Teresa gave him an encouraging smile when Cho showed his badge to Mr. Clarkson. “Special agent Kimball Cho. And Special Agents Teresa Lisbon-Jane and Ryan Polark. FBI. You’re the head of security here?”

“Yes. That’s me. Good to see you guys. Does this fool belong to you?”, the Security man growled, looking darkly over to Wylie.

“He does”, Cho replied, putting his badge back on his belt. “Why?”

“Staff called me, he’d been looking around upstairs. Couldn’t identify himself. I was short of calling the police, when he told me, you were coming here.”

Teresa blinked and pursed her lips as Wylie mouthed ‘forgot my badge’. 

Meanwhile Cho had kept his face without problem. “Won’t happen again, Sir. Would you make it possible for us to speak to the staff, please? And I was told, there’s a room we need to have a look at.”

“Sure, it’s the second floor from the top, Corner King room, with a view of the city and the lake. That’s where I found him.”, Mr. Clarkson frowned at Wylie. “I can lead you there.”

“That would be great.”

Wylie followed them to the lift with some distance, but as Teresa’s right leg was hurting again, since she’d been crouching behind the Cultural Center’s sign, he couldn’t walk slower than her without looking silly. Not being able to suppress the urge, she asked: “How did you even get in?”

The blond man smiled shyly before he answered: “I found a young employee and told her I was hosting a business meeting but that I needed to have a look at their rooms first, before I would pay a single cent. She bought it, when I said there were enough other hotels to consider. But when we found the room the shooter had used, and I intended to stay, she grew suspicious.”

Lisbon lifted her eyebrows. “You tried pulling off a Jane thing.” She had been right, she had not given him enough credit. Certainly she wouldn’t have thought he had the guts to try anything like this. But she grew stern just a heartbeat later, reprimanding him: “You better bring your badge next time. Or Cho will grill you. And he is right, you're representing a federal agency: You're supposed to act like that."

Wylie was saved from responding, as they reached the others in just that moment. Entering the lift, Teresa gave the security man a smile. "Old injury, sorry."

Nobody spoke till they reached their level. Then Mr. Clarkson said: "It's just down the floor, we have told everyone to stay in their rooms so you guys can do your work. If you don't mind, I would like to have a look at the security footage now."

"Good", Cho looked back at his team. "Actually, Sir", he continued then, "I am sending Wylie and Polark back with you. We need to have a look at the footage of your cameras ourselves."

The man looked grudgingly at Wylie but agreed nevertheless and the two agents stayed in the lift with him, while Cho and Teresa got out.

“You’re doing ok?”, Cho asked her, when they made their way through the hallway and he had assured himself they were out of earshot.

“‘OK’ is a good way to put it.” Teresa looked sideways at her boss and felt like she might have given an unlucky answer. Firmly she added: “But I am working on this case. Don’t you dare pull me off!”

“Can’t. We don’t have enough people without you.”

“Did you hear something about a candidate for Hardon’s job, yet?”, Teresa asked, referring to an older colleague of theirs who had gone into retirement about six weeks ago. Teresa remembered them all giving him a party. He had been a great co-worker, and Teresa sure missed him, now that she had to work with Polark most of the time. Wylie was usually manning the phones or doing IT stuff and Cho was often too busy with tedious bureaucratic matters to go into the field.

“I’ve received a few CVs. Don’t know what to make of them.” They had reached the room at the end of the hallway. “There we are.”

The door stood open. Putting on the gloves that Cho handed her, Teresa walked in. It was clean, tidy. The bed was untouched, only the imprint of something big, maybe a suitcase, was still showing on the covers. The shooter must had put his equipment on there. Her eyes went on to the window that was looking over the lake, the only table in the room was standing right in front of it. Just beneath a round whole that had been cut into the glass. The markings on the inlay carpet showing the carelessness with which the table had been pulled to it’s new place.

Teresa paused. “Feathers?”, she asked, looking back at Cho who just closed the bathroom door behind him. A bunch of dark, shimmering feathers were laying on the cushioned windowsill.

Her boss shrugged and she went over to the window, but stopped in her tracks when someone shouted out behind them.

“Hey! What are you guys doing here?” Two members of the forensic team were standing in the doorway. A man and a woman and both of them looked pretty pissed off.

“Playing havoc with our crime scene”, the woman said. “Did you touch anything?”

Cho answered first. “No. Ma’am, we’re FBI, we were having a look around ourselves.” He lifted the corner of his jacket to show her the badge on his belt.

“You’re supposed to wait till we put this room on record.”, the man replied and lifted his eyebrows at Cho and Teresa. “What are you waiting for? Out!”, he spat at them.

“No reason to get all rude”, Teresa muttered, as Cho said: “Actually we’re not. We’re just supposed to leave everything at its place till you’re done.”

The woman snorted. “And I sure hope you did mind that!”

Teresa could see the tiny change in Cho’s expression as he said: “Do you?”

“Certainly. Since it seems your people like to expand their command over the range of their actual authority.”

“And that would mean?”, Teresa heard herself asking, before her boss could give a response himself.

“That means, lady, that you’d better bring a babysitter yourself next time and don’t use my interns!”, the woman turned on her.

Oh. So that was what this was about. Teresa swallowed a nasty remark herself and instead simply replied, “Will do”, while pursing her lips.

“Good. Can we do our job here now?”

“Sure thing”, Teresa answered, looking at Cho who stood there with his poker face as always. “Boss?”

“We’re done here anyway”, he said then, turning from the man who was starting to put up the crime scene tape on the outside of the door frame. “Just let us out first, yeah?”

Grudgingly the forensics guy let them pass and Teresa felt the eyes of his colleague on her till they went around the corner of the door. “Nice people.”, she remarked, not paying much attention if they could still hear her or not.

Her boss didn’t answer, but she was sure to see a tiny spark in his eyes, when she turned her head to look at him.

She waited till she could be certain the forensic people were out of earshot, to ask: “What did you mean 'you don't know what to make of the CVs the Director gave you'?”, referring to their conversation from earlier. 

They had reached the lift and Cho pressed the button that would send a cage to their level. "They're nearly all rookies."

"Well, what about it? You haven't taken one since Polark and he is doing great.", she asked, when the lift arrived with a quiet ‘bing’ and the doors opened.

Cho stepped in and waited for her to follow him, before he stated: "We've got Wylie."

"Now you're being mean."

"No. Realistic."

"Nothing, Sir.", Wylie said when Cho had asked him, if there was anything useful on the camera footage, "He's wearing sunglasses and a wig. Might be about six feet high and caucasian, I'd say. Well, he comes in pulling a suitcase, pays upfront in cash and goes to his room. Half an hour later he leaves the building."

"Staff say he called before, asking if one of their rooms was still available for today. People do that from time to time apparently.", Polark jumped in, "And when I asked them if the sunglasses hadn't seemed off to them, considering it's early January, they said they thought he was having an affair."

"With himself?"

"No. The lover didn't show up and he left. At least that's what the receptionist thought."

Cho nodded. "Do we know if he called the hotel before now? Inquiring about an available room?"

"No. Well, yes, they got a few of those calls during the last couple of weeks, always at different hours so nobody could tell me if they recognized the voice and whether or not it was the shooter calling, there were no numbers matching today's. He also named himself as Smith when reserving the room."

Teresa looked at Wylie. "Do we have any camera covering how he got here? Using a cab maybe?"

The blond man shook his head. "No. He came by foot, pulling his suitcase. It's on the cameras pointing south. When he left he was heading north, so maybe he did take a cab, but I can't be sure. Once we're back in the office I'll check if the traffic cameras caught him."

"Good idea.", Cho replied and turned to Teresa. "We'll meet you there, Lisbon."

Taking that as a dismissal, she nodded to him and the hotel's head of security, before she left the surveillance room. She was half out of the hotel when her steps grew quicker. She was about to return to her daughter and she wouldn't take a second longer than necessary.

Her heartbeat slowed down a little when she saw the forensics vehicles still standing close to the lawn. The bodies had thankfully been taken away by now and Teresa spotted Megs and the forensics intern sitting on the ramp of an EMT van.

Megs jumped up as she saw her crossing the lawn. "Mommy!" She ran into Teresa's arms, who, kneeling down, pulled her into a tight hug. 

"Hi, sweetheart." Teresa allowed herself to close her eyes for a moment. She could smell the strong apple flavored shampoo her daughter loved that much. “I love you, sweetie”, she mumbled and smiled as she received an ‘I love you too’.

The two of them stayed there a while, till the pain in Teresa's leg forced her to get up. Only then did she realize that the baseball cap her daughter was wearing had the yellow FBI letters printed on the front. By now it was half falling off Megs' head, though.

"Where did you get that?", Teresa said and with a small smile pushed the cap back in place. 

"Mommy!", Megs protested, but then she pointed over to the forensics intern who was looking at them and waved. "The nice lady gave it to me, when I told her I would be talking about your job in school on Monday. Her name is Lyra."

A little more restrained, Teresa waved back before she turned to her daughter. "We'll have to go to the office, sweetie, but first I'd like to speak to these people here, ok?" 

Megs nodded and taking her little hand into hers Teresa crossed the rest of the lawn in a more moderate pace, trying not to put too much pressure on her throbbing leg.

"I talked to your superior", she said upon reaching the intern, "I'm sorry for using you this way, I should've…"

But the girl was already waving off. "Don't worry about it. Reyna is having a bad day. Frankly, I'm happy I had an excuse not to have to work with her today. And Meghan here is a darling.", she added smiling at the girl who was leaning against Teresa's left side.

"Thank you. And thanks for the cap too. I promised her one, myself, so if you like, you can have yours back."

"Naw. That's ok. Just you make sure, you don't forget about forensics on Monday!", the intern said to Megs winking.

The girl grinned up at her. "I won't. Promised!"

Teresa mouthed another 'Thank you!', before something else crossed her mind and she nodded to the EMT people. "Did they have a look at her?"

"Yes. Her body's still under shock and she's got a few scratches, which they patched. But she seems to be coping quite well, as you see. We've been throwing rocks over the lake - damn, I didn't think a six year old would beat me!", she winked at Megs. "Well, after a while she started talking. The guy from EMT says that's a good sign." The intern bit her lip before she added: "She seems to be missing her father."

Teresa felt the thankfulness for the girl leaving her at that last comment. And a bit frosty she answered: "She does." With another but less friendly 'thank you' she turned around to finally get back to her car.

Megs was mostly quite on their way to the FBI building. She'd asked Teresa why she'd gotten so cold with the forensic girl, and didn't say more when Teresa replied that it wasn't the intern's place to judge about their family matters.

But thankfully her daughter was staying close to Teresa when they were entering the building. Somehow she felt like she'd disappointed her daughter once more. But then again, what did that intern think? That she didn't know, Megs was missing her father?

Teresa's heart sank even lower when, upon reaching the level the Violent Crimes Unit occupied, Megs let go of her hand and ran over to Patrick's old sofa without saying a word. 

She gave a little sigh but decided it would be no use to reprimand the girl right now. Megs knew she'd have to stay on the sofa and she was already unpacking her coloring book and pencils to occupy herself with them. She was a great kid, kind and easy to handle, the recent change in her was worrying Teresa. Just a couple weeks ago Megs had been such a happy girl, now she was silent and keeping to herself most of the time.

Teresa had just sat down and turned on her computer when she heard the rest of the team stepping out of the lift. It could be nobody else since she recognized Polark's voice coming closer along the hallway. 

"... just can't believe you would forget something like that. I mean, you don't have to be surprised, they'll never make you into a full agent!"

"That's enough, Polark", Cho interrupted him, "That's not your call. Wylie, if you manage to forget your badge again, you'll be sitting behind that desk for the next six months. But for now you'll be looking through all of Agent Gregson’s old files. See if you can find us a suspect that's got enough money to hire a hitman. And I want that phone record of the hotel and the traffic cameras checked!"

Teresa looked up, when they reached their workplaces. Cho seemed even grimmer than he had done at the crime scene. 

Polark frowned at Megs but turned back to his boss just a moment later. “But…”

“Should I hear another word about that, you’ll be helping Wylie with the files.”, Cho turned to Teresa. “You’re ok with giving us your statement right now?”

She nodded, already getting up from her chair. 

“Good. Polark, that’s your job.”

Being interrogated by Polark wasn’t fun. Going through the whole thing again wasn’t fun. And it seemed to take forever. Teresa could feel herself going tense and when her colleague was finally finished and asked if he might ask Megs a few questions as well she glared at him, giving him a rigorous ‘No!’. 

She went straight back to her desk, making sure Megs was still on the sofa and busying herself with her school stuff by now, before she sat down on her chair to fill out that damn document that would also be asking her questions about the attack.

She was half finished with it, when Cho came over to her desk and handed her a file. The name on it didn’t seem familiar. “I’ll think I’ll make her the new team member. Just have to have a quick word with her old boss, why she wants to leave Wako. But she says she can be here by January 22nd - that’s no two weeks from now.”

“So she has already resigned from her post in Wako? That’s strange. I’ll have a look at it, just let me finish this one here.” Teresa pointed at the file on her screen.

“Sure. We’ll have to talk to Gregson’s old colleagues as well. Including Pike. Do you happen to have his number, if not I’ll try reach him in Washington.”

Teresa was of half a mind to simply ask him to look up the number but decided against it. “I’m not sure, but I can certainly try the old one. It might save us some time.” She looked up at Cho, who wasn’t moving. “Anything else?”

“Yes. I called the department's psychiatrist. You’ll have to go see her on Monday.”

Teresa could feel her face falling. “That’s a joke.”, she said, half laughing to mask the horror that had befallen her at the word 'psychiatrist'.

But her boss’ expression didn’t change. “No, a necessity. But, should she say something about you being a killer, I won’t believe her. Promised.”

“Funny”, she replied glaring at him, but Cho only gave her one of his tiny half smiles before he turned away, leaving her to the darn document that she was only half finished with.

She only noticed that it had gone dark outside, when the electric lights turned on. Blinking to make her tired eyes focus back on the file in front of her, she took a look at the clock on her screen. Nearly six. Four hours ago her and Megs had been happily walking along the Lady Bird Trail on the way back to their car, wondering if they should go see a movie this evening.

She turned her chair around to see the girl sleeping on the old sofa. Her pencils and drawing book were laying all across the floor besides her. Smiling affectionately, Teresa got up, packed the things back into her daughters rucksack and laid Megs’ knitted cloak over her like a blanket. 

Then she took the file from her desk to bring it back to Cho, who she'd heard talking on the phone with what sounded like an Supervisory Agent. It seemed they would be joined by a new team member in just over a week. A female agent called Alix MacKenna. 35 years of age, and judging by her file with some good detective skills. No trainee. _And God knows we need her_ , Teresa thought.

She put the file back on Cho's desk. Wylie was there too, standing still in his 'waiting-for-the-right-moment-to-talk' pose. Cho seemed to notice the two of them standing in front of his desk and with a swift look at the file, Teresa had brought back, he turned to Wylie. "Anything on the phone record of the hotel?"

"No, Sir. Well, quite a lot of the numbers are from prepaid phones so there could be a connection but we simply can't track them. But I landed a hit with the traffic cameras. Look!" He leaned his tablet against the pile of files on Cho's desk. "He must've taken a long way around to get to the hotel at first, knowing that no one would be looking for him before the shooting. But … _here_ he - at least I'd say it's him judging by the hair, also he's obviously in a rush - is leaving the hotel. There are cameras on him till he gets into this old green Dodge truck at the 382 Parking spot. No licence plate and I lost the truck when it was heading out to East Austin. A pick up truck, single cabin with a lot of rust, I already sent out a BOLO to the local police department."

"Good work." 

The moment Wylie went back to the boxes full of files, which he had brought up from the archive, Cho turned to Teresa. "Yes?"

Teresa bit her teeth together before she answered: "I couldn't reach Pike. Seems like the number isn't assigned anymore. This looks good", she added hastily, pointing at MacKenna's file. Cho gave her a nod before he looked over his shoulder to where Megs was sleeping on her father's old couch.

"Take her home", he said, turning back to Teresa. "You're on overtime, already. And I expect you to be here early tomorrow. I got Austin Police to check with the relatives of most of the victims, but I want us to do the Gregsons ourselves."

She nodded. "Yes.”, she said more to his desk than to Cho. After a pause she looked up at him, adding: “Thank you."


	3. Hide-and-Seek

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I was really hoping to get this chapter out on Friday, but it's one hour into Saturday already here. Well - what can you do?  
> Happy to get it out earlier than Sunday night anyway!
> 
> It's another rather slow chapter, but I hope you enjoy it nevertheless.  
> Trust me, there's gonna be some action sooner or later, I simply hate forcing stuff that doesn't seem to fit in.
> 
> Oh yes, and I finished Chapter 6 this week so it's gonna be on the weekly update schedule as well :D.

#  Hide-and-Seek

Judging by the dark SUV standing at the corner of the driveway, Cho was already there. He’d informed Teresa about Terry Gregson’s residence this morning and she had decided to head out to Driftwood on her own, right after dropping Megs at Mrs. Ellis place. Luckily the woman had been spontaneous enough to agree to taking the girl for the whole day, when Teresa had called her late that Friday evening.

Teresa allowed herself a good look at the property. The driveway was nestled in between two brick walls, that were about hip high even though the owners of the place apparently didn’t think this was enough and had put up high metal fences behind the walls. The driveway led to an old brick house with a large yard, that was divided into different sections, with dogs jumping around in each of them. Right in front of Teresa’s car, estimatedly ten meters along the driveway was a sign that read: ‘ _ Gregson Dog Breeding, SAR training. Specialized on breeding German Shepherds and Labrador Retrievers - Our dogs are the best of their breeds! SARDUS Member _ ’.

Taking a deep breath and preparing herself for the task at hand, Teresa got out of her vehicle. She walked over to the SUV and knocked on Cho’s window to get his attention and had to suppress a smile, when she realized he was reading one of those crime novels again. Like they didn’t get enough of that stuff in their real life.

Cho looked up and upon seeing her outside he threw the book on the passenger seat. “Morning”, he said, getting out of the car himself and instantly pulling his cloak tighter around him. 

“Morning, boss. I’m sorry for making you wai-”

“Never mind. I was early. You read my memo?”

Teresa nodded, following Cho along the driveway and past the dog breeder sign. “What do you think, that I simply ignored it?”, she countered, speaking over the dogs barking to both sides of them. “This place belongs to Terry Gregson - son of Finley Gregson - and his wife Monika. They have two sons, 10 and 15, they breed dogs.”

She looked sideways to see Cho nodding.

They walked without the exchange of another word, till they reached the gate to the yard of the property. Just as Cho reached out to try and open it, a new dog began barking loudly, and looking into the yard Teresa saw a great German Shepherd running towards them baring his teeth. Immediately she took a step back and heard herself saying “Whoa”. 

A sign at the gate told them to be aware of guard dogs protecting the property - like they needed that advice with the dog standing right in front of them, growling like a beast that had been sent straight from hell. Teresa could hear Cho sigh as she stepped carefully closer and pushed the bell button. "Great", he grumbled, looking at the dog.

They didn’t need to wait long before someone opened the front door of the house. A woman came out, looked at them in bewilderment but thankfully decided to come over to the gate. She immediately told the dog to drop it, in a firm but yet strangely calm manner, and the dog stopped his growling. Then the woman turned to look at Cho and Teresa. “What do you want? There are no training sessions scheduled for today. If you wish to have a look at the puppies you need to arrange an appointment first.”

“You’re Mrs. Gregson?”, Teresa asked and the woman nodded.

“We’re not here because of the dogs”, Cho said, taking his badge from his belt. “This is Special Agent Teresa Lisbon-Jane and I’m Special Agent Kimball Cho we’re with the FBI. We would like a word with your husband, Terry Gregson?”

“Oh”, Mrs. Gregson swallowed. “You’re … you’re here because of his dad, aren’t you? We… a guy from APD gave us a call yesterday. Terry wanted … he was planning to visit him today. That’s why there aren’t any training sessions today.” 

“Ma’am”, Teresa said, trying to sound reassuring, “Would you open the gate for us, please?”

The woman nodded, what made her blond pony slip out from behind her ears and fall into her eyes. Hurriedly she brushed it away, said ‘Sure’ and led them in. Teresa couldn’t help but wonder what Jane would’ve thought of this behavior, had he been there with her. But with a warm smile to Mrs. Gregson she pushed that thought away and thanked the woman before Cho and her followed her across the gravel of the yard and up the three steps into the house.

Cho seemed relieved when the German Shepherd, which had been following them on their heels when they were still in the yard, was staying on the other side of the door. They followed Mrs. Gregson through the floor and into what seemed to be the living room of the house. It was huge, with a glass front looking out over a great porch and a beautiful country view. Two sofas were standing in front of a small table facing a TV hanging on the wall and beneath that a fireplace at the wall furthest away from the entry of the room. A golden coated dog was laying on the carpet between the two sofas and behind the backrest of the sofa closer to the window they could see the back of a head, the brown hair already with some gray stands cut into a manly style.

“Terry, dear?”, the woman said, “These people are with the FBI, they want to talk to you about Finley.”

The head behind the sofa moved and the man looked at them, got up and crossed the room to shake Cho’s hand before he turned to Teresa. 

Automatically she pulled her jacket away to give him the opportunity to have a look at her badge, before she offered him her hand. “Special Agent Teresa Lisbon-Jane.”

Mr. Gregson nodded. “Terry Gregson. Please, have a seat”, he motioned towards the sofas.

Following his invitation the two agents went to sit on one of them. Cho actually took the long way around the back of the sofa, thereby avoiding getting into too close contact with the dog, who was looking up at the newcomers but otherwise didn’t move a muscle. A labrador, Teresa thought, noticing how her boss was sitting down at the other end of the sofa, keeping the whole room in his view.

Though the FBI agents demeanor stayed his usual stoic self, Mrs. Gregson seemed to have noticed Cho’s feelings for the dog as well, since she said: “That’s Lily. She’s a darling, but she’s getting old and her bones can’t take the cold as well as they did before, that’s why she’s staying inside. She won’t do anything.”, she stopped, then added, “I … I’ll get you something to drink, yes? Water? O maybe you would like some coffee?”

Teresa looked up at the woman, still wondering what made her this jumpy. “We don’t need anything, thank you, Ma’am”, she said, just when Mr. Gregson took his wife’s hand and said: “Water would be great, thank you, darling.”

And away she went, leaving them looking after her in silence. With the door to the living room closed behind her, Mr. Gregson coughed slightly. "Please excuse her. She's socially anxious, she deals just fine with the dogs and clients, but having strangers in our house isn't easy for her."

"She is very kind", Teresa answered at a loss for better words. She looked around to Cho, who with a barely noticeable nod, signalled her to lead the interview. "Would you mind answering us some questions about your father, Finley Gregson?", she asked, taking out her notebook.

Mr. Gregson swallowed but asked her to 'fire away'.

"Did you know your father was working for the FBI?"

Mr. Gregson blinked, looking at her in bewilderment. "Well, of course. But he is - was - retired now, wasn't he? What kind of question is that?"

Teresa went on without answering. "How would you describe your relationship with your father?"

"Good. We've been seeing each other regularly. I would drive to Austin to see him, usually every second Saturday. I - I was planning on seeing him today." Mr. Gregson looked to the ground. "He - he was really trying, you know? With him always away at work we weren't very close when I was younger. And he didn't think much about my work with the dogs, said, I could do more for my country. He stopped saying that when I started with SARDUS.", the man gave Teresa a slight smile, " 'guess nobody can say training Search and Rescue Dogs isn't a service to our country. That's what he was always talking about: 'You have to do something for your country, boy.' Like that’s our life's duty or so."

"But you said, you had a good relationship with your father?"

Mr. Gregson nodded. "Yes. It all changed when -" he looked up as the door to the living room opened. His wife had come back, carrying a wooden tray with four glasses and a carafe filled with water. 

They waited till she had put it all on the small table besides the sofas and with a 'please, help yourselves', had sat down close to her husband.

"Thank you, Ma'am." Teresa gave her a smile before she turned back to Mr. Gregson. "You were saying?"

The man took his wife's hand, that she had placed on his thigh, in his own before he continued: "Right… My father, well, he changed quite a bit, when he went into retirement. He was lonely I think, and - it seemed he remembered that he had a family. That he had a son. He started visiting us, helped look after our … he helped us look after the kids. He even took up a dog for himself, Tris.” Mr. Gregson turned around to his wife. “That would’ve been like five years ago?”

Mrs. Gregson nodded. “Yeah, I think so. Trissie was our problem child, she had a congenital heart defect and Finley just said he would take her.” She turned away and wiped her eyes. “He really loved that dog, I think.”, she continued then, “But it’s no real surprise - I mean, she was a darling. Just not fit enough to be a Search and Rescue dog.”

“The dog wasn’t at the Trail with him, do you know whe-”

“My father had to have her put down about a month ago.”, Mr. Gregson interrupted her, patting his wife’s hand. “Her heart was failing her, poor girl. My father - he was devastated. That afternoon stroll at the Trail? He had always been going there with Tris and, well, he didn’t stop doing so, even with her gone. He really missed her I think.”

Teresa looked sideways at Cho before she went on: “You said, your father was lonely? Do you know of any activity that he might’ve picked up after going into retirement?”

“Naw - though, actually, yes. He was talking about helping out at a clinic for veterans. Might have also taken Tris there with him, to help comfort those poor souls. I mean, that was my dad: Caring about those who serve our country.”

“Haven’t you been with the army yourself, for a while?”, Teresa asked, skimming through the notes she’d taken from Cho’s memo.

“For a year and a half. Yes. I was young and tried to please my father with that - it worked. But it wasn’t working for me. I couldn’t do it and so I resigned and decided to start training dogs.”

“How did your father react to that?”

“He was disappointed in me”, Mr. Gregson grimaced. “But I had decided not to care anymore. My mother and him had gotten a divorce shortly after I had moved out. She went off to New York to marry her high school love who is some well-to-do manager, or something. Turns out she had been seeing him behind my fathers back for years. She never called me back.” He shrugged. “So I decided I didn’t need my parents to agree with what I was doing. And as you see, I’ve been perfectly able to find my happiness without their so-called ‘help’.” He looked back at his wife, giving her half of a smile, before he once again turned to look at the ground. “He had changed, though.”, Mr. Gregson mumbled, talking to the rug, “He had changed.” And suddenly he got up, asking to be excused.

Back in her car, Teresa briefly massaged her temples, trying to relieve some of the starting headache she was experiencing. Even though Cho had sent her home early last night, neither her nor Megs had gotten much of a rest. After soothing her daughter to sleep with a song, Teresa had laid awake for hours, her heartbeat racing every time she tried to close her eyes. And when Megs had knocked on her door around midnight it had nearly made her jump out of bed. Nevertheless, with her daughter safely cuddling up to her for the rest of the night, Teresa had been able to relax a bit more herself. But still, she’d only gotten about two hours of actual sleep, if that.

While she had been laying there in her cold and way to big king size bed she’d also hoped Patrick would finally reach out to her. The shooting at the Cultural Center must’ve been over the news all across the US and … basically she had just hoped for him to call and ask how Megs and her were doing.

Teresa sighed, as she noticed Cho’s car pulling out of the driveway and back on the road heading for Austin. He was going to a meeting with journalists, who would certainly bombard him with questions whether the FBI considered the event of the last day as terrorism and how far they had gotten with their investigation. Her job was to pick up Polark at the office and have a look at Finley Gregson’s apartment.

After typing Megs phone number into the numeric keypad of the hands-free device, Teresa started the engine of her own car. She was already back on her way to Austin when the girl had finally picked up the phone.

“Hi, Mommy”

A smile on her face, Teresa answered: “Hi sweetheart. How are you? Is everything ok? Are you having fun?” Alarmed at the silence answering her instead of her daughter's voice, she added: “Megs? Are you ok?”

“Yes. But... I miss you mommy.”

“I miss you too, sweetheart.”, Teresa replied, repressing a sigh. “Would you like to tell me about your day so far? What have you and Leo been up to?”

“We... had waffles for breakfast, with vanilla cream and cherries. And … we went to play in the garden. It’s ok, I guess.” 

Teresa swallowed, feeling her heart ache with her daughter’s voice sounding so downcast. “Well, that sounds fun. I tell you, I would give a lot for a few wa-” but she stopped, when she heard sniveling coming from the other side of the phone. "Darling?” But the girl didn’t reply, “What’s up, dear?”, she nearly choked on the words. Someone honked behind her and she noticed that she’d been going less than 30mph and pushed her foot down on the gas pedal. Still she could hear Megs sniffling. Briefly Teresa thought about pulling over alongside the road, giving herself the opportunity to turn her attention away from the traffic, but she decided against it, knowing that Polark was expecting her back at the office. 

“Please, talk to me, Megs, what’s going on?”

“Leo… he … we were playing hide-and-seek. I …”, more sniveling interrupted her explanation, “I don’t like that, mommy. I don’t like that. Hiding.  _ Sniff _ . Being alone. It...  _ Sniff _ … it scared me … and then Leo said I was a chicken. His mom stopped him. But … am I a chicken, mommy?”

“No”, Teresa pressed out between her lips, blinking to prevent her own tears from coming. “No, sweetheart, you're not a chicken. You are very brave. And there is no shame in not liking a game anymore. Just tell him that, ok?” Her daughter didn’t reply. “Are you nodding, dear? For if you are, I can’t see that, I’m sorry.”

“Y-yes.”

“Is there anything else you would like to be doing?”

_ Sniff _ . “They… they’ve got a trampoline” 

“Ok. Then ask Mrs. Ellis if you can go jumping, yeah? How about that? And remember, sweetheart, whatever Leo says, you’re not a chicken, ok?”

Another sniff answered her. Then: “Ok.”

“Good. I love you.”

"I love you too, mommy."

Teresa sighed, she had called her daughter to hear how she was doing, but that wasn’t the only reason. Taking her right hand of the steering wheel to wipe the tears out of her eyes, Teresa asked: “Actually, sweetheart, could you hand me over to Mrs. Ellis, please?”

Her daughter replied with a ‘Yes’ and only a moment later, Teresa heard the voice of the woman on the other end of the phone, going on about how sorry she was, and that she didn’t know that playing a harmless kids game would have that effect on poor little Meghan. 

“It’s not your fault”, Teresa stated, when there finally was a break in Mrs. Ellis’ elaboration. “She’s been through a lot lately, you couldn’t have known that.” She paused, delaying the reason she had called. It broke her heart. Finally she said: “Do you know where I could find a babysitter for her?”

She entered the FBI building in an awful mood. Hearing her daughter in a state like that, had shaken her. It was her fault, her daughter was like this, she knew that - she was the reason the two of them had been at the Lady Bird Lake the previous afternoon. But she had only wished to spend a bit of fun time with her daughter. How should she have known that such a terrible thing would happen?

Obviously, she could not have foreseen that happening, but just knowing this didn’t help her feelings about the matter.

Luckily Polark had already been waiting for her and upon seeing her, he got up from his seat to go back to the elevator with her. Teresa wasn’t required to say more than a simple ‘Hi’ to the two of her colleagues before she could leave the building again. 

“I drive”, she blunted, when she noticed Polark heading for the door on the driver’s side of the FBI’s SUV and held out her hand to receive the keys from him. Sitting in the car, she noticed the man looking sideways at her as she punched the address of their destination into the navigation system, but decided to ignore him.

Polark showed great people skills in not talking to her for the whole drive, which was only good for the two of them. They got stuck in traffic twice, and when they finally reached the apartment Finley Gregson had been living in, Teresa was ready to punch anyone, who crossed her, in the face. Or give them a taste of her taser. Whatever.

But she didn't do so, when the housekeeper wasn't allowing them into the apartment block. Instead she let Polark talk to him and observed the scene. The building was one of the older ones in this part of Austin’s downtown. She could certainly believe that Finley would’ve been able to afford a condo in a place like this even though it was within walking distance of the Lady Bird Trail. Something she had paid close attention to when driving there.

It took Polark at least ten minutes till he could convince the elderly Asian that they had the right to enter Mr. Gregson’s apartment. That they had the man’s keys with them - which had been sent to Cho by the forensics’ office, who had found it with Finley’s belongings - had only made the matter worse. “Like a thief wouldn’t be able to make a fake.” 

“But a thief wouldn’t be standing here discussing with you and letting you have a close look at him, thereby giving you the opportunity to describe him perfectly to the police - which for a matter of fact we are!”, Polark replied in desperation.

“Ah! Badges. They prove nothing. Could be fake as well, you know? And my eyesight ain't as good as once either.”

Nevertheless Mr. Hwung finally led them into the lift and pushed the button that would bring the three of them to the sixth floor. He watched the two FBI agents closely when they opened the door to the apartment, and would’ve most likely stayed with them till they left the building again, hadn’t Teresa asked him to give them some space.

The flat looked tidy. It was properly cleaned and besides a few dishes in the sink everything seemed to be at its place. The furniture was a bit modern for a man of Finley’s age, like it had been there before he moved in. There were few personal things in any of the rooms. Two bowls, pushed to the side in the kitchen, and a dog bed in the bedroom as well as one in the living room told them that there had been a dog living in this apartment, just like Terry Gregson had stated.

It was the living room, where they finally stumbled upon something that made it worth coming here. Skimming through the address book on Gregson’s desk, Teresa found an entry of a veteran hospital located in northern Austin. She was just taking a picture of it to send to Cho, when someone knocked on the door of the flat.

Polark was the first at the door and just showing his badge to the elderly lady standing in the hallway, when Teresa got there. She estimated the lady’s age at about eighty to ninety. She looked rather old, but seemed to be still quite tough as she prompted: “And what are you people doing here in Finley’s apartment, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Ma’am”, Teresa started, her voice carefully soft, “Mr. Gregson got killed in an incident, we are investigating.”

The woman blinked at her. “He- he got … what? When?”, she asked, leaning on her stick for support. 

“Just yesterday.”, Teresa continued and added. “Would you like to sit down, Ma’am?” She pointed at the couch that was standing in the living room.

“Yes. Yes, I would very much like to do so. Thank you, dear. Oh, poor Finley!” The lady sauntered across the room, only taking tiny steps, till she reached the couch and let herself sink down on it. She looked at the vase that was standing on the low table in front of her. “Oh, poor Finley. He was such a nice man you know. Always kind and helpful.”

“Did you know him well?”, Teresa asked, already pulling a chair over for herself.

The Lady nodded. “Yes. Well at least since he’s been living here. That must be about five years by now, I think. Oh, how the time flies. How - how did this happen to Finley?”

“He was shot during the shooting at the Cultural Center yesterday.” It was all over the news, so Teresa decided it wouldn’t make any difference if she told the woman. “Can you tell us something about Finley? What his interests were, what his day would look like?”

“Well, he was always talking about his son and grandsons. He loved them, you could tell that, and he felt sorry for not being there much, when his son was their age. Always seemed so beaten up, when he talked about him. Like he’d done him wrong, but as I gather it, he was only doing his job, trying to keep his family fed basically.”

Teresa felt briefly reminded of her own family situation, Patrick complained so much about. But luckily the old woman brought her thoughts back to the present by continuing: “He also really enjoyed spending time with that dog of his. Went for a walk with her at least twice a day - said she was keeping him fit. Dear Tris, she died, you know? Just a few weeks ago. That really hurt Finley, you could see it in his eyes.” She paused, looking around the room.

“Oh, and he hasn’t even put her stuff away as I see.”, she added when her eyes fell on the dog bed in the corner. “He really struggled letting her go. But you need to be able to do so with pets - they all live shorter lives than we do. But Finley, he wasn’t going to die any day soon. Who will bring me my groceries now? I’m not strong enough to carry them all the way here!”

“Have you noticed any other changes in his behavior lately? Anything strange?”, Polark asked. He was still standing, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“No. Not that I could tell. He was still coming over to play bridge every once in a while, and I know he was also still visiting that veterans place, even though he didn’t bring Tris with him anymore, of course. I miss that dog too. She was such a darling.”

“Oh really? I always thought that dog was a right brat!”, someone else interrupted her, nearly making Teresa jump out of her chair. A young male with dark hair that was falling him into the face had taken a look through the door.

“How can you say that? Tris was so very sweet.”, the lady shot back at him.

“Sure she was, always barking like that. I’m sleeping right next to this living room and yes, as I’m working the night shift now and then, I would very much appreciate getting some sleep during the day! I was waiting for her to die of that heart condition she had.”

“You bastard!”, the lady made attempts to get up, but Teresa was able to stop her. “And that just after poor Finley died himself! You wouldn’t have the guts to tell him that to the face, would you?”

“Oh I had - wait, Finley is dead?” Shock showed on the young man’s face.

“Yes. These are FBI agents investigating his case. Apparently he got shot in that terrible event yesterday afternoon at the Cultural Center! So you better show some respect!”

The man looked at her, obviously putting together the bits of information she’d just given him. Teresa got up, sensing him being on the edge of running away, but instead the man stepped into the apartment, making her muscles release their tension. “So you guys are FBI?”he asked, turning to Polark.

“Yes. Special Agent Ryan Polark and Special Agent Teresa Lisbon-Jane.” Polark pulled his jacket back in a well practiced motion and Teresa copied him. “Would you mind answering us a few questions about Mr. Gregson?”

“Would you mind answering a few questions about the shooting at the Cultural Center first? The media is kinda vague on the matter. And I think we deserve to know whether there are terrorists out there, aiming at Austin’s citizens!”

“We can’t talk about ongoing investigations -” Teresa started, when her phone began to ring. She pulled it out of her back pocket and saw her daughter's name showing on the display. Swallowing she turned to Polark, muttering to him: “I have to take this, can you handle this?” 

The dark haired man looked at the back of her phone that was still ringing with that well known awful default sound, then he nodded. 

Sighing with relief Teresa turned away from Finley’s neighbors and went to the kitchen to get on the balcony of the apartment, where she would have as much privacy as she could get here. Then she finally answered the phone.

“Hi, sweetie, what’s up?”

Her heart sank as she noticed that her daughter was sobbing again. “I want to go home, mommy!”

Teresa closed her eyes and leaned against the balcony’s railing. “Why that, sweetheart? I thought you liked it at Leo’s.”

“I … I do. But …  _ sniff  _ … but I want to go home now. I want to be with you …  _ sniff _ and I want daddy to come back!”

Raised voices were coming from the living room of the apartment, as Teresa pressed her lips together. She could hear Polark shouting something. “Look, sweetheart, I’m at work right now. I’ll come pick you up as soon as I can, yes?”

“When is that?”

Teresa sighed. Polark was shouting her name now and something shattered. “I don’t know. I’m so sorry, dear, I really gotta go. I’ll pick you up as soon as I can. I love you!”

She waited but Megs only sniffed even harder. 

“Lisbon! Ouch, stop that!  _ Ma’am _ !”

Teresa swallowed once more and whispered another ‘I love you’ into the phone before she hung up and went back to the living room. She stopped in the door frame for a second startled by what was going on in front of her.

Her colleague and the old lady seemed to be fighting over the walking stick she had been carrying around with her. The vase that had been standing on the table in front of the living room couch was lying shattered besides the table and the dark haired youngster wasn’t anywhere to be seen.

“So what did Cho say?”, Polark asked, when they were sitting back in the car. His voice had a weird tone to it, most likely because his nose had gotten a good beating with the walking stick. 

Apparently the old lady and the man - they had finally gotten their names before they had left the lady in the hallway of the building, Mathilda Nicton and James Charles - had gotten into a fight right after Lisbon had left the living room. Out of rage Mathilda had then started to try and use her walking stick as a weapon and in an attempt to get at James she first pushed the vase off the table before she had hit poor Polark, who had tried to calm her down, on the nose. In the meantime James had legged it.

Teresa sighed. “It wasn’t Cho, who called. It was my daughter.”

“Your kid?”, he asked.

“Yes, my kid.”

Polark turned to her and she could hear his disbelief without looking at him. “So I got beaten up with the walking stick of a woman that is about as old as my grandma, because you had to talk to your kid?”

“I wouldn’t tell it that way, if I were you.”

But the black haired man had headed straight to Cho’s desk once they’d gotten back to the office.

Teresa was standing in the break room, tapping the counter with her fingers, waiting for the machine to finish pouring out her coffee, when she noticed her boss entering the room and shutting the door behind him. 

She turned to him and looking at his grim face she asked: “How were the news people?”

“Pain in the butt. Your coffee is ready.”

Thanking him with a smile she turned around to take the cup into her hands, Cho’s eyes following her move.

“Have a seat, Lisbon”, he said then, pointing over to the chair at the table.

She followed his request, already guessing the topic of their upcoming conversation. Cho took his time to pull over a chair for himself and placed it right in front of her, leaving the table to his side. “Polark tells me you were distracted today.”

Her guess had been right. “I left him with a young man and a woman that was at least eighty. How should I have known it would end with him getting beaten up with her walking stick?”

Cho chuckled slightly. “It’s not about that.”

“What then?”, Teresa allowed herself the hint of a smile. Cho’s reaction had relaxed her, but her boss’ expression changed back into that of concern.

“Are you doing ok?”

“Yes. I told you so just yesterday.”

Cho sighed. “I need you to be honest with yourself here, Lisbon. I can’t put you out in the field, when there are other things on your mind.”

That hit. “I know how to do my job, Cho”, Teresa retorted, her body stiffening up in defense.

“And are you doing it?”

“Well, then don’t send me into the field!”, she blunted and got up in the same second, but turned around to him just a second later. His expression was blank as usual. “Really? You saw me this morning, do you think I can do my job or not?” But her boss was still just sitting there looking at her. Trying to swallow down her anger, she got her cup from the table and turned to leave the room.

“Wait.”

She turned back to him. “You can go home as soon as you're finished with your paperwork today. Take tomorrow off.”

“But-”

“We can deal with the veterans on our own. And I want to hear that you are attending that psychological counseling. The first session is Monday morning.”

Teresa nodded. His words had made her body tense up and she wanted to leave this room as soon as possible. But her boss called her back a second time.

“I’ve reached Pike”, he said when she’d turned back around to him. “He’s coming here to pay his respect at Gregson’s funeral on Tuesday. He’ll come in right after that to talk with us.”

Teresa gave him half of a smile. At least that meant he was expecting her to be at work on Tuesday. “Thanks for letting me know.”

The light was already fading outside, when she put the car in park in front of the Ellis’ house, let out a deep sigh and opened her hair, which she had been wearing in a bun most of the day. This wasn’t how she wanted to greet her daughter. Stiff and business like. Megs needed a comforting mom and Teresa was determined to do her best to help the girl.

Her hair hanging loosely around her face now, she looked at her phone and noticed that over three hours had passed since the kid had called her. She swallowed, her finger ready to swipe across the display and call her daughter when reading the surname gave her another idea. 

After all, he was her father. Scrolling down through the recent calls, it took surprisingly little time to find his number. Not allowing herself to hesitate she swiped across the screen to call.

The frown on her face just grew bigger as the phone kept on ringing. Then after what had felt like an eternity, the voice mail answered. Frustration swept over Teresa, even though she should have - had - expected that. Wasn’t this why she had decided not to call him once since he had left? 

The beeping sound signalled her that it was her turn to speak. For a second she thought about just hanging up, but she couldn’t change that she had called and so she talked to the machine, her voice harsh and dry. “Hi there. How are you doing, Patrick? Well, whatever it is you’re up to, I hope you haven’t forgotten that you’ve got a daughter here.” She paused. Her anger was gone as soon as it had come and subdued she added, “Megs needs you, you know?”, before she hung up, ignoring the pain in her chest.


	4. The Story of the Green Dodge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there! So it's Sunday again, but it's not THAT late ;P.
> 
> Now, I might have mislead your ideas on what this story is about. I should also add, that we haven't reached 20% of the full story/plot yet. That point will more or less be marked by the end of Chapter 6.  
> Due to this and also because I'm currently working on further fleshing out the plot I am adding a few tags for this work - I hope you don't mind the changes. (There is also the possibility of later additions to the tags as there are ideas I'm currently playing with but haven't decided on yet :D).  
> And I sure hope you enjoy going down this road with me!
> 
> That being said, THANK YOU all for your support! I love waking up to new kudos and comments!  
> Enjoy Chapter 4:

# The Story of the Green Dodge

Megs and her had spent their Saturday evening cuddling up in front of the TV, watching an older animated kids movie, the girl had picked. The computer animated characters looked very different from what Teresa remembered from her own childhood and even though the story of a tame dragon that looked more like a winged newt was kinda cute, she couldn’t manage to stay awake for longer than thirty minutes. Her daughter had to wake her up once the movie had ended.

Teresa couldn’t say that she didn’t enjoy having the whole Sunday to spend with her. She had started the day doing yoga for the first time in weeks, still skipping the parts that would strain her right side too much. But the physiologist in the hospital had agreed that it could only help her, given she wouldn't push herself too hard. 

Megs had left her bedroom and stepped out onto the loft to find Teresa half way through her session. Still in her penguin pyjamas she tried to copy the figures - accompanied by constant giggling.

They had french toasts for breakfast - something that Teresa felt she was getting good at. They were definitely easier to make than pancakes. And after she had sprinkled chocolate chips over the toasts in the pan, Megs had stopped complaining about missing pancakes. 

She'd called the toasts 'so yummy!' but after she'd scarfed down the first one she only picked at the second.

"You're finished already?" 

The girl sighed, shook her head and started actually eating the toast. But she didn't look as happy as she'd been only a moment before. Teresa was about to blame it on Friday afternoon’s event when finally her daughter opened her mouth to speak.

"Daddy called me."

Teresa nearly dropped her own fork. "He … he _what_?"

Megs nodded. "He called and asked me how I am doing. Yesterday, at Leo’s." 

Teresa swallowed. Somehow she hadn't even thought about the possibility of her husband directly calling their daughter to talk to her. The first thing she felt was relief. So, Patrick was ok. Most likely. But only a heartbeat later she remembered how she had tried to call him herself and he had just ignored her. In the silence that spread between Megs and her, she caught herself wondering, when exactly Patrick had called the girl. She came to the conclusion that it had most likely been after Megs had called her while she and Polark had been out at Gregson’s flat. But definitely before she had tried to call the jackass herself.

"Are you angry with me?"

Megs' words made her blink. Shocked, she looked back at her daughter. "No, no sweetheart, why should I be?"

"I thought … I thought you might not like me talking to him."

"Why shouldn't I?" 

Silence answered her as Megs once again picked at what was left of her second toast. Then, still looking at the toast she said: "You were so angry with him. You … I heard you tell him to go away. Leave you alone."

Teresa swallowed. So Megs had heard them fighting. And those words - she'd taken it back as soon as they were out, but they had hung there between Patrick and her. _"If you can't accept who I am and what I do, then go! Leave me alone! You’re good at that, aren’t you? You knew and you told me we'd make it work! But I've lived without you long enough. I don't need you!"_ When he'd turned to pack, she'd begged him to stay. 

Looking at her daughter who seemed to be close to tears again she said: "I didn't mean it. I promise you that. And you can't believe how sorry I am for saying what I did." 

A nod. "Ok" Megs ate the last pieces of her toast, but Teresa found that she had lost her appetite and so she just watched her. When the girl was finished eating she looked back at her mother obviously thinking about something.

"Would … would you like him to come back?", Megs asked tentatively a moment later.

Sure she would. Yet at the same time she would’ve liked to yell at him again for leaving in the first place. And take those words back, those words she hadn’t meant. Not like that. "Of course", Teresa replied softly. 

"Good. I asked him if he would. And he said yes. But … but he didn't wanna say when."

 _When that jackass thinks it's gonna play out best for him_ , Teresa thought. But she wouldn't say those words out loud. She was angry with Patrick for running away from his fears, thereby forcing her to either fail her job or her daughter. But there was just no way she would talk about him like this in front of their child. Megs shouldn’t have to choose a side between her parents.

"He also asked me how you're doing and … and he asked me if you are working on that shooter case."

Whatever she had just thought, were Patrick standing in front of her right now, Teresa might’ve strangled him. But she tried her best to calm herself down. Patrick couldn't know. 

Carefully she asked: "Did you talk to him about Friday?"

The girl shook her head. 

"You know, if you wish to talk about it, I'm here. You can talk to me about everything."

"I don't wanna talk about it, mommy."

Teresa sighed. She got up to put the dishes into the washer. The rest of her own breakfast landed in the fridge. When she turned back around to her daughter, the girl was still sitting at the table like she didn't know what to do with herself.

"What do you think about enjoying the sun a bit?", she asked, when she returned to the table, a wet rag and a towel in her hands.

And when her daughter looked up at her there was some new shine in her eyes.

So when the table was clean the two of them went outside for a walk around the property. The sun was nice and for a change it was nearly warm, giving Teresa the chance to actually relax a bit and she smiled, watching her daughter trying to manage a perfect cartwheel.

Their afternoon was spent putting together the poster, Megs would bring with her to kindergarten on the following day, when she would talk about her mom’s work as an FBI agent. Teresa worried briefly that the topic wouldn’t be easy for the girl, but when she listened to what Megs was planning to say about her job it didn’t even touch Friday afternoon’s event in the slightest.

Teresa's good mood was gone the next morning. Sitting there on the soft couch in the office of the psychiatrist she was supposed to tell her worries to, Teresa was hoping that the other kids liked Megs' presentation. She looked over to the watch on the small table. Yes, her girl would be standing in front of the class right now.

The shrink coughed slightly, pulling Teresa’s thoughts back to her surroundings. “Yes?”, she asked, hoping she hadn’t missed the woman saying something important.

But it didn’t seem she had. Instead Mrs. Langley asked: “What’s on your mind, Teresa?”

She shrugged, thinking: _too much_. It had irritated her that the woman used her first name when the session started, but by now she figured that this was just a method she used to create a more confidential feeling between them.

The woman pulled her mouth into half a smile. “Teresa, you have been sitting here for over forty minutes now, not saying a word. I do kinda need you to work with me.”

“Aren’t you getting paid anyway?”

This got Mrs. Langley to chuckle. She leaned back into her armchair, crossing her legs. “For a matter of fact, I do.”, she replied, “I get paid, whether you talk to me or not. But we aren’t doing this for me.”

“No, we are doing this because some policy tells us to. I mean, I get it”, Teresa blunted, “It is good to get the possibility of counseling, especially as we are carrying guns, but this -”, she waved her hand, indicating at the whole room, “- this is just not for me. It doesn’t work for me. So if you don’t mind, I’m very happy to be sitting here, saying nothing, till our time is over.”

“Be my guest.”, but despite the words the expression on the psychiatrist’s face had changed into one of concern. “But I will have to ask you to come back.”

“I thought you would.”, Teresa grumped. 

After another five minutes passing in silence she added thoughtfully: “You do know, the last time I had to take multiple counseling sessions because some maniac nearly killed me, we ended up arresting the psychiatrist for murder, yes?”

“Doesn’t sound like you had the possibility to build up a lot of trust in people like me. You say ‘multiple sessions’, am I right in assuming that the psychiatrists you were talking to after shootings - and with your career you must have been in a few of those - usually signed your papers off after seeing you just once?”

Teresa nodded. “Pretty much.”

The woman muttered something to herself Teresa couldn’t understand. “See, Teresa, I read your files. You have worked through a lot. Based on that, I wouldn’t put it past you to be able to cope with some pretty threatening situations now. But I do need to make sure that is the case. And also there is more than just that worrying you, isn’t there?”

She felt her muscles tensing up again. “Who told you?”

“Your boss did.” Mrs. Langley sighed. “He seems worried about you.”

Teresa snorted. “Fine. But you can’t help me.” Another glance at the clock told her that their time was finally over and she got up from the couch, bidding the shrink goodbye. Leaving the room, she thought that she would’ve very well been able to assist Megs with her presentation this morning. 

“What a waste of time.”, she mumbled to herself, knowing that she would spend the rest of the day and probably the whole week assisting Wylie to go through Gregson’s old files. The kind of work that would put you right to sleep.

Yet only one day later, Teresa was surprised to find herself standing in the middle of this recycling depot, surrounded by an uncountable number of run down vehicles. After the way she had behaved during that counseling session, she had thought Cho would keep her sitting in the office answering the phone and going through Finley Gregson’s old cases for longer than a single day. 

She wasn’t going to complain though. Her boss had told her to take Wylie out to this place, just when she had felt like she would go mad if she had to check yet another case that was at least ten years old. None of their team had even worked for the FBI back then.

“That’s the truck”, the man leading them around this graveyard of cars said, nodding his head in the direction of a green Dodge that was covered in rust. Teresa looked over at Wylie who had his tablet in his hands, comparing a picture on it with the vehicle in front of them.

“It certainly looks like this one”, he concluded just a moment later, making her turn back to the owner of the recycling depot. A man with a long and wild greying beard, wearing a Harley Davidson leather jacket that didn’t do much good to hide his tummy.

“You told APD somebody had left the truck here this morning?” She waited for the man to confirm this before she went on, asking: “Did you happen to see the person? Or do you have any cameras here?”

He shook his head. “The only cameras are around the main building, but I did see someone coming from this area shortly after the truck was parked here. A lady, pretty good looking, if you ask me. Long brown hair - lighter than yours. And she was also probably quite a bit younger.”

Teresa sighed, leading the man to make excuses about him not meaning any harm by his comment. But she just thanked him for his help, which then again, hadn’t been of much use. They weren’t looking for a woman. There had to be tons of trucks like this one.

Frustrated, she motioned for Wylie to follow her to their own vehicle.

They picked up food from a fastfood chain on their way back to the office, leading to them being greeted heartily by their colleagues upon their return. 

Both Cho and Polark had attended the service at Gregson’s funeral to have an eye out for anyone who might seem suspicious, but not being invited for the following lunch they appeared to be starving.

The three men had already dug into the meal in their break room, as Teresa bid them goodbye telling them to leave two portions for her and Megs. The comment earned her a disgruntled look from Polark. 

“So you’re bringing her here again?”, he asked, after swallowing down the piece of burger that had kept him from talking.

“Well, yes, I am”

He rolled his eyes at her. “This is no daycare facility, Lisbon. We are all trying to work here.”

Teresa pressed her lips together, doing her best to suppress her anger about this man. “And where do you suppose I leave her? Sitting on the street?”

The man had taken another bite and was chewing on it now, giving her the opportunity to leave without listening to what kind of nasty remark he was coming up with. Ignoring his sour look she turned around and made her way over to the lifts.

Waiting for her ride down to the street level of the building she sighed. Polark was a good agent and doing his job with the professionalism he was supposed to, she shouldn’t be clashing with him like that. Thinking about it, she didn’t even know where this kind of behavior came from. Normally she would’ve been able to handle a situation like this without any difficulty.

The lift arrived accompanied by a quiet _bing_ , that interrupted her thought process and she went inside. Anyway, she had talked to Cho about bringing Megs here from time to time till she finally found a babysitter for her, since the kid just couldn’t stay at the Ellis’ place everyday. And with her boss approving it, Polark had no reason to question her.

Nevertheless, when she returned with Megs with her, Teresa was glad to see that the black haired man was nowhere to be seen. “Out with someone from APD checking on that young man they brought to the hospital. They finally brought him out of that artificial coma they’d put him in.”, Cho answered her questioning look. “And it’s good you’re back so fast, Wylie found an inconsistency in an older file I want to make some inquiries about. I’m taking him with me so you’ll be on phone duty, while we’re gone.”

Teresa nodded, showing that she’d understood, before she stopped Megs from going straight to Patrick’s couch behind her desk, and instead shoved her in the direction of the break room. “There’s a cheeseburger waiting for you there, sweetie.”, she told the girl, who immediately stopped resisting her mother’s direction.

“Bye, Cho”, Megs smiled, as she saw the man putting on his jacket and received a smile in return. Teresa shook her head. The kid was one of the few she knew who had such an easy time making her boss smile.

Eating the burger didn’t take her daughter very long and soon after, Teresa found herself back in that chair in front of her desk, going through more of those files. Lucky Wylie for finding something that was worth further investigations and getting to go with Cho. 

Teresa chuckled about her own thoughts. This nearly felt like her time with SFPD when she was still a rookie, who would have given anything to go out into the field with one of the senior agents. It felt like all that had happened to a different person. She smiled once more, rolling her eyes now as she remembered, what Patrick would say to a comment like that. 

_“We never really change, Teresa, we just like to make ourselves believe that.”_

Well, that might be true, but he had changed her. There was no doubt in that.

She heard the _bing_ of the lift stopping and sighed, not wishing to have Polark coming back so soon. The office was actually quite nice when there weren’t that many people there and having Megs doing her homework on the couch behind her had a relaxing influence on her. She didn’t wish to feel guilty about that.

Closing the file she had been going through, she looked up, to see where Polark had gone and looked right into the face of another dark haired man she hadn’t been prepared to see right now. He looked good and it had been a long time since she had seen him smile at her like that. Warm and friendly.

“Hello, Teresa.”

She swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat. “Marcus. Hi.” Trying herself at a friendly smile in return she put the file back on its pile, got up and held out her hand for him, hoping her checks weren’t as red as they felt.

The man took her hand and shook it like they were normal colleagues. “Manning the phones?”, he asked, “I thought you would be one of the first ones in the field.”

“Naw. Not right now, there’s a lot going on.”, she replied. “You are here to talk about Finley Gregson, yes?”

He nodded. “Your boss asked me to.”

“Yeah, he told me. Come, have a seat.” And she motioned for him to use the chair on the other side of her desk. 

Marcus turned to follow her invitation, but as his eyes fell on Megs sitting on that old couch and drawing letter writing exercises into a schoolbook. Teresa could tell the FBI agent was drawing all the right conclusions by the frown that was showing on his forehead.

“How old is she?”, Marcus asked, when he finally turned around to Teresa and seated himself in the chair.

“Six”

He made a snorting sound. “You didn’t wait long, did you?”

Feeling rather annoyed, but at the same time painfully sorry Teresa swallowed down the next lump that was starting to build in her throat, when Marcus continued: “I wasn’t particularly surprised, you know. When I got your text that morning.”

“Marcus …”

“I knew it was hard for you to leave him. Jane, I mean. I knew there was something between the two of you, but ...” He averted his eyes, looking around the room and pressing his lips together.

“Please, Marcus”, Teresa intervened, now that she had the chance to do so without interrupting him, “let us talk about Gregson, ok?”

He gave another nod. “Sure. What would you like to know?”, he asked, his voice back to its usual friendly and open tone and his eyes focussing on her once more.

Teresa let out a silent sigh of relief. This was safe ground they were treading on now. “Let’s start with how long you have been working with him?”

“Oh”, the man rubbed his fingers across his forehead, “Well, that must’ve been over ten years certainly. We were colleagues at first, before he became our supervising agent, and then, I think it was in 2015 when he changed to the white collar unit.”

“And what was he like? As a colleague as well as a boss?”

“Determined. Yes, he wanted to do his job well, and he wanted his agents to perform as good as they could. You know the drill. It takes a toll on you to do this kind of work, but he wanted to do it right.”

“It takes a toll - meaning…?”

Marcus snorted. “None of us is better for having to work this much, are we? He … well, his family life suffered under the strain.”

Teresa suppressed a sigh. “Did that show in any particular way?”

“Well, he had an affair, and I am pretty sure his wife knew about it. I’ve got no idea how long it lasted though. Maybe a couple years? They never moved together, even after Bryttne - Finley’s wife - left for New York.”

“That was shortly before his son dumped his job with the army, yes?”

The man sitting opposite to her frowned. “Yes.”, he said then, “Yes, I think that’s right.”

“Do you know anything about their relationship to each other?”

“Well…” Marcus sighed. “I told you his family life suffered under his work. He loved his son, I’m sure about that. Wouldn’t let anything bad come on him even after the man stormed into his office one day and screamed at him in a tantrum loud enough, everyone of us could hear it.”

Teresa nodded to herself. So their relationship hadn’t been very good, just as the son had said. “Do you know anything about how their relationship changed, after Gregson had retired?”

Marcus shook his head. “No. I’m sorry, but we were never such good friends that he would talk to me about things like that. All I know is the things a good detective picks up from what is going on around him.” Just like he hadn’t needed long to realize who the girl sitting on Patrick’s old couch was.

“Ok. Have you ever seen the woman he had an affair with?”

“Sure. On multiple occasions. And she was quite a woman, long legs and everything.” He suddenly chuckled. “Actually she looked not unlike his wife. Brown hair, dark eyes. Her name …?”, he shook his head. “No idea, sorry.”

“No worries.”, Teresa sighed, thinking about the reason Cho and Wylie had left the office. “Listen Marcus, you said Gregson was a good agent, always correct, yes?” 

“As often as one can be.”

“Well, so any inconsistencies found in his old cases, like missing money, or witnesses that weren’t interrogated properly, that … that would just be an accident?”

He looked to the side, sighing. “How old are those cases, you’re talking about?”

Teresa pulled the case file she had just studied over from the pile and checked the date. “Like eighteen years and counting back.”

Running his hand through his hair, Marcus sighed a second time. “Look, Teresa, he is dead. I’ve just been to his funeral. It doesn’t feel right, talking bad about him.”

“He’s been killed, Marcus. We’re trying to figure out who did that.”

“Yes. Yes. Well, I suppose he wasn’t good at hiding it back then.” He sighed once more before he pulled a face and said: “He let some people off the hook and got paid for it.”

She couldn’t believe her ears. “You worked for a corrupt cop?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I did.”

“Why in God’s name didn’t you tell on him?”

The man actually had the nerve to chuckle and smile at her. “Why did you do the things Jane asked from you?” But he grew serious again just a second later. “Teresa, Gregson might have been corrupt, yes. But he wasn’t a bad cop. He had his troubles and paid for them, I’m sure, but he did do his best to get the bad people. Those he let go, they weren’t any big deal.”

Her jaw muscles were still tense, when she continued coldly: “Do you know what he used that money for?”

Her words had made him snort out loud. “Yeah, he told me every little detail about it. No. I just picked up on it, that he wasn’t all that accurate when it came to more unimportant accomplices, I mean.”

“And you let him.”

Marcus sighed. “Yes I did. Look at the more recent files and you will find that he always came up with a good reason to keep these people out of court.”

She nodded. Right, those files didn’t show any inconsistencies. 

The man opposite her shifted in his chair and with a softer voice he asked: “Is that everything?”

“No. There’s that weird thing....” She paused and changed her approach: “Do feathers, or Magpies for that matter, mean anything to you?”

“Magpies?” He gave her a sceptical look. “No. Not to me nor do I have any idea what they could have meant to Gregson.”

“Ok, thank you. That should be it.” She closed the notebook she had been writing into. “And Cho has your number in case there should be anything else.”

He nodded, not making any move to leave. Instead he took the pen she had used to take notes from her hand and picked up one of the sticky notes from the stack she kept on her desk. “Well, this is my current phone number.”, he said, while writing something down. “So, just give me a call. Whatever you feel like talking about. I took some time off to come down here and visit my family and friends - I would be happy to enjoy dinner with you sometime.”

She took the note from him only apprehensively. “I don’t think that would be a good idea, Marcus.”

He touched her fingers slightly. “Maybe not, but… I would’ve never left you, you know.”

Lost for words, she just stared at him before stammering: “He … Patrick didn’t leave me.” She pulled her hand out of the man’s reach, making him tilt his head and giving her a look that told her he didn’t believe a word. She swallowed, looking away, before she admitted: “He’ll come back.”

Nodding he stood up from his chair. “I sure hope so for you, Teresa”, he said, pulling on his jacket. “Take care.” And then he turned to leave the office not waiting to hear her say ‘goodbye’.

She sighed, leaning back in her chair, once he was out of sight. Briefly she ran her hands over her face before once again massaging her temples. A tug on her shirt at the height of her elbow made her frown and look to her side. Megs had left the couch. “Who was that?”, she asked.

Teresa slightly smiled at her and motioned for her to sit down on her lap. “An old friend”, she replied as the girl climbed up her legs and she held her breath when her right hip protested. For one moment she had forgotten about the injury and was paying for it, but she didn’t want to tell Megs to leave again right away.

“I don’t like him.”

Chuckling Teresa kissed her daughter on the cheek and put her arms around her. “You don’t have to. Your daddy doesn’t like him very much either.”

The _bing_ of the lift sounded once more and just a moment later Polark returned to his desk to Teresa’s left. He gave her and Megs a grouchy look, but Teresa simply ignored him. Instead she reached out for the rim of her desk and pulled her chair closer to it, so she could reach for her phone. There was something she needed to tell her boss about.

  
  


Handling two cups of coffee, while she was trying to open the door of the darkened interrogation room, wasn’t the easiest task Teresa had ever set herself up to. Luckily Cho noticed what was going on and opened the door from the inside.

“Thanks”, she mouthed, before she handed him one of the cups. “That one’s for you, boss.”

He took it out of her hand, already turning back to the window to the interrogation room next to the one they were in. Teresa pulled herself a chair over to the window, not in the mood to try her right leg more than she had to, and focused her attention on the other room as well. The woman sitting opposite to Polark was crying silently.

“I … I didn’t even know.” Cho and Teresa heard her saying through the speaker. “He was always so kind and I really liked him, but I didn’t know he was actually my dad. My mom always said my dad didn’t live in Austin. She … I, I didn’t know.”

Polark gave her some time before he leaned forward. “Ma’am”, he tried to get her attention back, “Jodie, did Finley ever talk to you about money?”

The woman sniffed and used a tissue to dry the tears from her eyes. She shook her head. “Well, everyone knows that caregivers don’t get a great salary and he sometimes left a bit of money for the staff. He even bought us a new couch for our break room. As I told you before, he was really trying to help out.”

“Sounds like a nice man, hm?” The woman nodded and Polark continued: “We found a testimony of his, saying that a great amount of the money he had left would go to you, when he died.”

Teresa had to stop herself from rolling her eyes. ‘We found a testimony of his…’ was an enormous understatement of Wylie’s work. The poor man had been sitting in front of his computer for hours after he and Cho had returned to the office that Tuesday afternoon. First he had tried to find the bank account Gregson had used for the bribe-money he had received and upon finding an offshore account somewhere in Switzerland, he had put his efforts into figuring out what would happen to the money, now that the man was dead. And finally, this Wednesday morning, some information had showed up, leading them to ask this woman, Jodie Travis, to come to them for interrogation.

Besides the fact that Jodie was basically broke, she fit perfectly to the offender’s profile. Not very attached to Gregson in the first place the money she would receive upon his death would certainly be enough of a motive to hire a killer. As she had said herself, caregivers didn’t earn a whole bunch of money and the lady was raising two kids on her own because her boyfriend had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Only the fact that she wouldn’t be able to pay the hitman was strange. But then again she would have enough money to pay him, once she received the money from Gregson. Something that would not hold up in court though - hitmen usually liked to get paid up front. A habit that seemed to come with the profession.

But there was something else that might convince the jury and after a look back at the glassfront behind him, Polark pulled out two photos from the folder that was laying on the table in front of him. He took a look at them himself briefly, having seen them before and then laid them out in front of the woman. “Is that your truck, Jodie?”

She looked at him in bewilderment, shaking her head.

“Funny”, Polark remarked, “As we have a witness describing a woman just like you parking this green Dodge at a recycling depot, which for a fact is not far from the housing block in which you’re living. And your boss confirmed that you were late for work yesterday.”

Jodie swallowed. “I … well, it is not my truck!”

“This doesn’t look good, Ma’am”, Polark said to her with a sigh before pointing at one of the pictures and revealing: “This was taken from a traffic camera. We have strong reason to believe the killer used it to get away from the crime scene. That makes you look like an accomplice at the very least.”

“No!” The woman’s eyes had gone wide, her look wild. “No! I would never. You have to believe me. That truck …”, she shook her head, “that truck had been parked behind my car yesterday morning, so that I couldn’t leave for work.” She was crying again now. “I … I went to check the front seat and noticed that the keys were still in the lock.” Swallowing she averted her eyes from the pictures.

“And then you just drove it to the second best recycling depot you could find? Excuse me, but that hardly makes any sense - Ma’am!”, Polark roared as she just kept on crying.

“I … I … I’ve never seen that truck before yesterday morning”, Jodie stammered, still sobbing.

“But you drove it to that recycling depot, yes?”

She nodded shakily making Teresa lean forward in her chair behind the glass that divided the two rooms.

Polark sighed. “Then tell me why.”

The woman shook her head from side to side, before she hid her face behind her hands, making the FBI agent growl: “Someone killed four people in bright daylight. We need answers here, Ma’am!”

Teresa looked at Cho, she was of a mind to ask him to let her go inside the other room and try to make the woman talk herself. Her muscles felt tense, her teeth were clenched. But then finally Jodie talked again, making Teresa swing her head back around so she could see her.

“When … when I checked the cabin of the truck… there … _sob_ … there was a picture taped against the window. It … Oh my God!” She cried heartily now, no longer trying to contain her tears. “There … the picture. It showed my two boys sleeping in their beds. We’re on the third floor - who could take pictures of them, while they were sleeping?!” 

She sobbed again and Teresa felt her fists unclench but her heart racing, when the woman went on. Now that she had started talking it seemed she couldn’t stop before she hadn’t told it all. “I … I went to open the door, because … well, obviously I wanted to get their picture off of there. And … the door was open, but … but at the back of the picture there was an envelope attached to it. So … so of course, I opened it -” Someone knocked against the door of the room, but Cho didn’t answer.

Jodie was sobbing again, but Teresa could tell she was trying to regulate her breath. Once again there came a knocking sound from the door and this time Cho went to answer it. Disgruntled about being distracted Teresa looked over to the door, but it seemed her boss had already sent away whoever had been knocking.

“There … there was a letter inside that envelope.”, Jodie whined. Swallowing she continued: “It … it told me to bring that truck to a recycling place - any recycling place, if … if I wished to see my boys return after school.” And then all hope of talking to her was lost. 

Teresa ran her hands over her own face. Her heart was going two hundred miles an hour, she felt sick, shaky even. A picture of Megs in her lovely penguin pyjama had appeared in front of her eyes. Feeling her boss’ gaze on her she let her breath out in a controlled manner, calming herself down. “Yes?”, she asked, remembering the guy at the door.

“Terry Gregson just arrived.”

Teresa nodded, getting up from her chair. She didn’t feel in the mood to talk to the man just now, but it was her job after all. “Do you want to come with?”, she asked her boss before taking her empty coffee cup and turning to leave the room. 

“No. I’ll do the interview. You - have a break. And tell Wylie to check both of their finances - I want to know every detail about it no matter what they say.”

Teresa nodded. Then she said: “Do you think she’s lying about this?”

“No.”, Cho replied, his face bland as ever. “But we have to check.”

The door fell shut behind him, and Teresa sighed. He was right of course, and it was good she didn’t need to interview Finley Gregson’s son. A second later she left the surveillance room as well and went to tell Wylie what Cho had told her to, before she headed to the break room, not to make herself another coffee, as her heart was still pumping blood into her body at a pace that should not be allowed. Instead she poured herself a glass of water and set down.

Polark arrived just a few minutes later. Seeing her he said: “That changed things up, hm?”

She nodded and he turned to the coffee machine. “I know how you came to think the shooting was about Gregson”, he said then, still with his back to Teresa. “It even might help you to feel not as guilty about having survived yourself, huh?”

Seeing no need to reply, Teresa kept her mouth shut. She could see where her colleague was going with this and it took only a short break for him to say it out loud. “But what if you were wrong?” He turned back around to her, while the machine was pouring coffee into his cup. “What if it’s just some crazy killer? We might be going at this in a totally wrong way.”

“Then why framing Jodie?”

He shook his head. “To make it look like it was about Gregson.”

“Possible”, Teresa muttered, raising her brows. “Did she say anything more about the letter? Does she still have it?”

Polark shook his head. “No. She said she tore the photo and the letter into tiny pieces and put it into the next best bin, knowing that they would be emptied soon. Said she wanted nothing more to do with it.” He sighed. “I checked, the bins in front of the apartment block she and her sons live in got emptied yesterday.”

“Bummer”, Wylie said, just entering the break room and having overheard Polark’s last words. “Oh, can I take that cup by any chance?” he blunted, pointing at the freshly poured cup of coffee, "Cho says I’m not to take a break till I haven’t turned around every last penny or gift the two of them might have received or given away. Obviously he didn’t use just those words but anyway I need something strong to keep me going.”

The black haired man, the finished cup of coffee belonged to, rolled his eyes but grumbled: “Take it.”

Wylie took the cup, saying the words ‘thanks, man!’ way to fast and was gone a second later, as Polark turned to make the machine pour him yet another cup.

Wylie had managed to make Teresa feel just a little bit better and so she got up to talk to her boss. She wanted to ask him to let her take her paperwork home with her this day, as the girl, Mrs. Ellis had recommended her as a babysitter, was coming over and she didn’t feel like leaving her alone with Megs in her home yet. After only having one hour to get to know the teenager herself.


	5. Snowflakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, yes, I am late. And I'm seriously sorry!
> 
> I had two exams during the last week and studying for them simply destroyed any kind of creativity. And even though the chapter was already finished I wanted to make some changes on it before posting it. But, by now, it is the longest chapter I have written so far!
> 
> I'm also sorry to say that I don't think I'll get to upload the next chapter this weekend, as I am still studying for exams that are scheduled for the end of March. I am going to do my best though for the chapters that are coming up till then.
> 
> To make a long story short:  
> Here's Chapter 5, finally!
> 
> Thank you all for reading :D

# Snowflakes

“Your boss talked to me again.” The shrink sighed, glancing at Teresa, who was giving her a beastly look. “There is no shame in what you’re going through, Teresa. Not even a week ago you and your child survived a sniper’s attack during which four other people lost their lives. I would be more worried if you weren’t at all sensitive to the matter of kidnapping or the like.”

Teresa swallowed but refused to reply to this. She knew that already, but by now it wasn’t only Polark and Cho worrying if she was still able to do her job properly. Empathy was well and good and made you human, but getting that upset listening to Jodie Travis’ story was unprofessional, if not outright problematic.

The woman with that soft honey colored skin sighed once more. “Is there anything you would like to talk about? It might help you, you know.”

Terea shook her head, but then something crossed her mind. “You didn’t tell him about the way I behaved during our last meeting. Cho, I mean.”

Mrs. Langley shook her head. “No. I’m only obliged to tell him whether I think you’re fit to work or not. Everything else falls under the doctor-patient confidentiality, I won’t tell anybody a single word about what you say or do during our sessions.”

Nodding, Teresa asked the question that was nugging at her since Polark’s interrogation of Jodie. “And do you still think so? That I am capable of doing my job?”

“Do you think you are?”

Teresa stared at her. What kind of a question was that? “You’re supposed to know that, not me!”, she protested.

“But what would you say? You’ve spent years, even decades being an agent and not only for the FBI. Do you think that’s still the right job for you?”

“Yes!”

“Ok, then do you think you should be working on this case?”

This time Teresa’s voice wasn’t as strong as she replied: “I want to.”

“You want to? Now, is that what it takes for you to be able to do your job?”

Teresa looked away, shaking her head slightly. Why in God’s name was she being forced to sit in this room twice a week instead of doing something useful, when all the shrink did was handing her own questions right back to her? 

And was her will to do her job right good enough? She'd asked herself that question more than once ever since she’d been back from maternity leave. Back then she’d felt the need to do something, anything, other than sitting around doing daily chores in the house. 

But somehow some cases felt different ever since. Even before the offenders had often evoked feelings of anger or disgust in her but since Megs had been born, it was harder to keep her own feelings in check when she entered the interrogation room. Possible with enough willpower but hard. Offering a deal to the stalker of a young woman because he had critical information for one of their cases had felt like a betrayal not only to that one woman but to her own daughter.

If the FBI wasn’t capable of keeping people like these away from the streets then what did they do? Bargaining with criminals? She’d tried talking to Patrick about it but it ended in a discussion about her quitting the job once and for all and so they stopped in order to keep their peace in the matter. But as it turned out they'd only delayed their dispute and maybe by doing so achieved a worse outcome than either of them had expected or wished for. Nevertheless, Patrick certainly wished for her to lay the job down.

Teresa felt her teeth clench. She wasn’t ready to do that. This job was who she was. And it was important. Whatever Jane said about everyone making a difference, this job sure felt more like that than idly sitting around at home. However much it had hurt that she hadn’t heard her daughters first words. But she had been there to see the girl take her first wobbling steps.

And not even a week ago somebody had very nearly killed her wonderful daughter. Had caused her child to get freaked out by a harmless game of hide-and-seek with her friend. People who did that kind of thing needed to be caught and brought into court. And she could and would give everything to achieve that goal. She had gotten the opportunity to lend her skills to one of the best federal agencies. Dropping a job like this was not only a betrayal to herself but to everyone living in this country, counting on them to do their best to keep them living in a country on which laws they could rely. And anyway, what else could she do? What other job would give her the satisfaction, the feeling of being useful?

“I worked as police chief in Washington state for about eighteen months.”, Teresa finally said, “It certainly was a good job and I think if I had to, if you say I have to leave the FBI, I could do it again - if not in Washington but around here somewhere, hopefully.”, she reflected aloud, “But … it did not feel like this. Like working for the FBI does, or the CBI for that matter. Every job is tedious at times, but that, well, it _was_ good work. Necessary work”, she repeated, before adding: “But it’s basically like sitting at the side of the road counting passing yellow cars.”

At this the psychiatrist finally spoke again. “Counting yellow cars?”, she asked, her brows raised.

“It’s not what police chiefs do obviously”, Teresa paddled back, regretting her thoughtless words about the job. Yet she still murmured: “But it does feel like that after working as an agent.”

“I do imagine it as less stressful, though." Mrs. Langley commented. 

"It was." Teresa admitted. And she'd put on a good face, talked herself into liking it being that quiet. Maybe after the Red John affair it actually was a good thing for her to do something else. But working for the FBI showed her, she'd been lying to herself. Of course she'd missed the CBI. Not only Jane. And now, stepping down from the FBI? The thought made her feel empty. 

The psychiatrist seemed to guess her trail of thoughts as she said: "There have to be other job opportunities for you as well.”

Nothing Patrick would like any better and Teresa would still somewhat enjoy doing. She had put all her life to the task of being a good detective, a good agent, even a good chief and then a good special agent. What would, what could, possibly come next? The government required her to retire by the age of 57, but she had never given much thought to the question if she would be leaving before that or not. Nor to the question of what she would do with her life then. 

“I don’t want to walk people around the state museum, wearing a stupid hat”, she mumbled to herself quietly.

But the psychiatrist seemed to have heard her since she smiled slightly and repeated: “No stupid hat for you.”

“No.” Teresa let her eyes wander around the room. There wasn’t much to remind people of the origin of the shrink. No typical, maybe even clichéic feathers. Only the throw on the couch Teresa was sitting on which displayed indian patterns. “You know what?”, she admitted a moment later, “I have no idea, what exactly you did, but this did help for a change. A bit.”

Mrs. Langley raised her brows. “Did it?”

Teresa nodded. “I do like this job. It feels good. And most of the time it feels right. When I get home I feel like I can be proud of what I did that day, not always, but most days. It takes a lot, but it also gives back. I can do this - I have before - I don't want to quit simply because it's not easy right now. If I did, I would already be in the wrong field of work. Also”, she added, feeling like she needed to prove her ability, "I found a babysitter for my daughter. Someone who can look after her while I'm at work. She'll be starting next week." _So Polark doesn't need to complain anymore. And I will pull myself together and keep my nerves in check, no more of giving anyone reason to talk to a shrink about me._

“That sounds like a start. If it really is what you want.” Crossing her legs the psychiatrist leaned back into her chair, looking at Teresa thoughtfully for a while. Then she took a deep breath before she asked softly: “Now, how is your daughter dealing with all of this?”

Teresa swallowed, feeling like the question had hit her out of nothing. Megs. No. No, she hadn’t come here to talk about her daughter. Actually she hadn’t even planned on talking at all. Looking up at the shrink she grumped: “We're supposed to talk about me here, yes? You get into my affairs and make assumptions about _my_ mental health. My daughter is out of bounds for you. You don't get to judge her. So leave her alone. You’re still a stranger” And without another look at the woman she grabbed her jacket and left the room half an hour early. 

She had a better idea of how to deal with the emotions that were once again fighting each other in her stomach just after this single question. Instead of going up to the bullpen this early she would spend the thirty minutes left to her at the shooting range.

She had to have a go at the targets for a few rounds before she finally attained that feeling of calm concentration and control this activity usually bestowed upon her. It was almost a kind of meditation. Just her and those targets on the sheets some meters away. And this early there was also nobody else using the FBI’s own training range.

When she drew her weapon in the field there was always adrenaline rushing through her body and it wasn’t very different during their regular trainings. But shooting at the range was something else. It was all about accuracy and that made it a simple matter of breathing and body control. It was not like taking your anger out on something - you could do good but you would never reach your full potential like that. Rather you needed to let go of your emotions for a while, free your mind, to fully control your body.

Reaching this state of mind was what she needed right now and for the first time since Friday afternoon she felt her body and mind relax. The effect was even strong enough that upon her arrival at the office Wylie asked her if the shrink had hypnotized her. Hearing his own words his head went red, leading Teresa to think that the word ‘hypnotized’ had put exactly the same person on his mind as on hers.

But she smiled at him, before he could pedal back or even apologize. “No. Not exactly. And it wasn’t even the psychologist who did this for me.”

The blond man looked relieved. “Then what did?”

“Shooting something”, Teresa replied casually, while turning on her computer. She didn’t even mind that most of the day would consist of dull paperwork and calling people that had an apartment in the same block Jodie Travis and her sons were living in.

Cho and Polark had spent the previous afternoon there, examining the building and interrogating the neighbors that had been home. If one believed their statements, nobody had seen anything, but the two agents agreed that it would be easy to jump from the fire escape to the balcony in front of the two boys bedroom if you were only a tiny bit agile.

Teresa didn’t have any more luck in calling the people her boss hadn’t got to interrogate while he was there. Nobody wanted to have seen anything suspicious and quite a couple of them seemed to be reluctant about talking to any kind of cops in the first place.

Picking Megs up from kindergarten offered a nice disruption of her monotone day structure. And as she brought lunch back with her for the whole team even Polark didn’t seem to feel like complaining about the girl being at the office for the afternoon.

An afternoon spent with more paperwork and fruitless phone calls. This time to the endless list of shops in Austin where the shooter might have bought the wig and/or feathers. Wiley had started that kind of work on Monday, but so far they hadn’t gotten anywhere. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack without knowing if the needle was even there. Seeing Wylie absentmindedly playing around with one of the tiny figurines he kept on the top of his desktop she figured, he wasn’t getting anywhere either.

Sadly she remained right about her assumption. He had found no significant transaction of money in any kind, neither for Jodie Travis nor Terry Gregson nor his wife. Not that the research about the last two hadn’t been a desperate attempt anyway. Folks got mad at family members and in a rage they might even kill them, but hiring a hitman because you found out about a half sister who, after you got your father killed, would receive all the money? No. Sure, looking at the record of Cho’s interrogation of Terry the day before, she thought that there was enough anger in the man when he found out there was a half sister. He raged on about his father being the selfish bastard he’d ever been and that by giving all the money to the daughter of his chick, he was abandoning his grandsons. Terry even went as far as to say that his father might have deserved to die, but took those words back instantly. 

All in all it was certainly enough to think he might have been able to kill his father out of rage right then and there, but that was it. His rage, everything in his demeanor, screamed it was news to him his father even had a second child.

And by the end of the shift, they all had to admit it to themselves: They were stuck. And in desperate need of a new perspective at the case.

Teresa had been sure Cho’s eyes had stayed on her just a tad longer as he disbanded their team’s meeting, but he knew as well as her that there was no use in it. Even if Patrick were in Austin, her husband had decided not to get back involved with the FBI years ago.

Therefore most of them spent their Friday looking for a new approach to their investigation. Only their boss had another appointment. But none of the three agents he left behind when he went to go to the press meeting around noon felt particularly jealous. Looking after him in sympathy, Teresa even thought that getting to stay away from the cameras and questions of the journalists, was one of the more thankful things about being a ‘simple’ agent.

After all, she still had the pleasure to listen to the report on the radio later, when she and Megs were sitting in the car on their way home from the Ellis’ place where the kid had spent her Friday afternoon. It was especially lovely:

“While the only surviving victim, a young man of the age of twenty two, is still fighting for his life at hospital, the authorities at the FBI are keeping their silence about the Cultural Center Shooting last Friday. No answers as to if they have any suspects, or what the motive for the shooting was. The only information the Supervisory Special Agent currently dealing with the case offered to journalists today was that his team is working around the clock. But with no apparent results. So Austiners are still holding their breaths while we do not know whether we have to expect another attack. More on this topic with former FBI Special Agent Timothy Randall in twenty minutes.” 

Teresa rolled her eyes. ‘We do not know whether to expect another attack’ - for sure Austin’s citizens would feel terrified if the local news stations kept on saying it might have been a terrorism attack!

“And now: the weather.” The speaker changed and a male voice told her not to head out to the shop yet, cause she might like to keep those winter tires on her car just a tad longer. “Tomorrow's sun will certainly be a pleasure for all of us with a high nearing fifty degrees. But don’t get your spirits up to early, if you’re planning on running the Fast Half on Sunday. The end of the weekend will bring the cold wind and some sleet from Oklahoma to us and by nightfall we might be back below thirty again so keep an eye out for black ice everyone and drive save!”

“If you’re planning on running at all on Sunday”, the female took over from her partner. “As I said, people might think it safer to stay away from crowds, with last Friday’s shooter still out there somew-”

“Do you think it might happen again?”

Teresa blinked, her mind had drifted away from the news when she had turned into their driveway. Looking into the rearview mirror, while she put the car in park, she said: “Sorry, sweetheart, what did you say?”

“Maybe we shouldn’t go to the zoo tomorrow, if -” Teresa saw her daughter swallow down the words that didn’t seem to want to pass her lips, she sighed. Those damn news people really had no idea what they were doing.

“But it was you who asked whether we could go. Don’t you want to go anymore?”, she said, turning around to be able to look at the kid properly.

Megs shrugged. “Don’t know. But the news lady said to stay away from crowds.”

“The news lady hasn’t got a single clue.”, Teresa sighed. “Look, if you wish, I can tell Haley to come here tomorrow and we just spent the day in the yard. But I like your idea of going to the zoo - I think it would do the two of us some good to go somewhere else, don’t you?”

Megs nodded, hesitantly but still. “Ok, sweetheart, then let’s go get some dinner, yes?”

Saturday’s sun was just as enjoyable as the weather reporter had promised. And Teresa found an upside to the terrible way the news folk were treating the Shooting at the Cultural Center: There weren’t that many people at the zoo as one would expect on a Saturday.

It turned out that Megs still had a favor for penguins as she spent at least half an hour at the Antarktis display and then again stopped for a longer period at an enclosure belonging to South America which also inhibited a species of penguins which to Teresa’s surprise were much smaller than their distant relatives from the Antarktis.

“It’s because a big body keeps the heat better.”, Megs explained, mainly to Haley though. “Teacher Mandy said something like that the smaller penguins have more skin. But I didn’t really understand that - they are _smaller_ after all!”

“I’m sure your teacher didn’t mean that they have more skin.” The blond seventeen year old smiled at Megs. “But compared to their body size as a whole the smaller penguins have a greater amount of skin, and that’s where the heat leaves the body. That’s also why African elephants have such big ears - they’re helping them to regulate their body temperature.” 

“Really?” 

Seeing her daughter this lively warmed Teresa’s heart for the teenager. She certainly had to thank Mrs. Ellis for recommending Haley to her. Forcefully she even kept herself at a distance from time to time to give the girls some space to bond to each other. Her stomach grumbled everytime Megs addressed the teenager only, but after all, starting next week the two would have to manage being on their own. And when the girls engaged in a game of tag at the playground Teresa couldn’t keep from smiling at them. Megs’ laughter was all she needed to hear to know Haley would be a great babysitter for her. It was so good to see the kid smile again.

“Let’s buy you girls some lunch.”, she said, grinning as both of them came to join her on the park bench, huffing and puffing the two of them.

“Damn, she is fast for her age!”, Haley muttered and louder she said to the brunette girl at her side: “You’re like a little rabbit, you know?!”, making Megs giggle.

Looking fondly at her daughter herself, Teresa thought that the kid was bound to be agile, she was her daughter after all. And Patrick had shown his ability to run on quite some occasions though mostly away from danger.

“So what is it for you?” Teresa asked Haley as they reached the food stands. It seemed that due to the lack of visitors the park had only opened one of them. Grudgingly she noticed that they didn’t offer salads or sandwiches. Fries with sausages or fish sticks, not even wings. What a delight.

“Oh, you don’t have to pay for me”, the blond girl responded. “I packed a sandwich and something to drink, that’s fine, thank you.”

“I’d like some fries, please!”, Megs interrupted her mother’s response, making her grin. 

“And you will get some with a little patience”, she replied before turning back to Haley, “Are you sure? You’re welcome to get some of that greasy stuff too if you like.”

The girl seemed to ponder, but finally she said: “Ok, then I'd also like some fries”, and hastily added: “Thank you, Mrs. Lisbon-Jane.”

Trying to hide her confusion about the formal address the round faced girl had used, Teresa turned away to order three portions of fries and three sodas from the man inside the stand. “You can call me Teresa, please”, she offered to Haley when the man had taken the order and asked them to wait.

“Ok, well, thanks, Teresa.”

“Don’t you worry about it.”, she reassured the girl before smiling down at Megs who was leaning against her side. 

They were still waiting for the last portion of fries to get finished, when Haley asked to be excused as she had to go to the washroom. “Don’t you have to go too?”, Teresa asked Megs when the teenager was already walking away from them, but the girl shook her head.

“There you go”, the man had turned around to hand her the last paper plate full of freshly deep-fried potato sticks. Passing two of the three soda cans down to Megs, Teresa stacked the plates with fries on one another and did her best to try and manage bringing them and the last can of soda to one of the picnic tables. It was one of many but only another family was sitting at a table far away from the one Teresa chose for her little group. Looking over at the other two she felt a furrow forming between her brows - it was a strange thing for the zoo to be this empty.

“I called daddy on Thursday”, Megs said, when she dragged the first plate of fries from the stack Teresa had automatically sat down on the table. She slightly shook her head, dispelling her confusion about the lack of people at the facility, and then the meaning of her daughter’s words hit her.

“You did?”, she asked, trying to sound casually as she dreaded to hear that Patrick hadn’t picked up. She was at a loss for what she could possibly do to comfort her daughter.

The girl nodded. “Yes, we talk a lot since Saturday. Everyday. You said you’re not angry.”

“I’m not.”, Teresa said, masking her surprise. “It’s good you’re talking to him, sweetheart.” _Although it would certainly be nice, if he could pick up when I call._ Only she had to admit to herself that she hadn’t tried to call her husband since that time last Saturday. She certainly didn’t wish to be rejected once again and also, what was there to say? That she wanted him to get his ass back here so she could kick it? He knew that already, there was no reason for another fight.

“I … I told him about Haley and that she will be babysitting me. He isn’t very happy about it.” Her daughter’s words brought Teresa’s thoughts back to where she was right now.

 _Neither one of us is_ , Teresa thought swallowing. Did Patrick really have to make it even worse? But after all, he had left so she would be forced to leave the FBI to have the time to look after their daughter.

“But when I told him that I was ok with it, he said that I couldn’t be more like you, mommy.”

Having spent the whole Saturday outside, they decided to stay at home for Sunday - after a trip to the closest grocery store. They were running low on some basic things and since the sleet was already collecting on the porch early in the morning, Megs had gotten it into her head that they would be baking christmas cookies together. Teresa’s protests about it already being mid January had simply been ignored.

When they were finished with their task, the white stuff laying in the garden, that was barely worth to be called snow anyway, had melted away. Instead the kitchen looked like it had been snowing inside. The last time Teresa had been standing in a kitchen, baking, felt ages ago, and even though she had never been particularly good at it, she didn’t remember it being quite this _messy_. 

Thinking back, it also didn't seem that messy, when she had watched Megs and her father having a go at it in December. Just having been released from the hospital, she had been sitting around a lot and couldn't do much more than complimenting her husband and her daughter for the yummy cookies and from time to time help out by cutting them out of the dough. This time she had to do the bulk of the work and it got only more difficult when the oven suddenly decided to quit working. It simply wouldn't heat up. So instead they had to use a tiny tray and bake the cookies with the microwave's oven setting.

But the way to brightly colored cookies did taste delicious. And they had made so many of them! Teresa felt herself debating with her pride whether she should bring some back to the office with her on Monday. Wylie would certainly love them. Maybe she should put some into a tupperware box for him. But before she would do anything like that the kitchen was in dire need of some clean up.

Only Megs was hardly as delighted at the thought of cleaning as she had been about making the mess in the first place. 

“You know, I don’t think the purpose of this baking thing was to get the whole kitchen looking like it was powdered with flour.”, Teresa teased her, but being Patrick’s daughter the girl didn’t even blink.

Casually she insisted: “Yes it was.”

“Nooo. Definitely not.” But she smiled at Megs, when just at that moment her phone started ringing. Rolling her eyes, Teresa reached to fetch the electronic device out of her trousers back pocket.

Her heart hurt just a little when she saw Cho’s name on the display. She had been thinking about another man. But only a second later the disappointment was washed away by worry. Hadn’t he been insisting that she would spend the weekend at home?

“Hi boss?”, she said right when she had moved the phone to her ear.

“Lisbon. Hi.” She heard him swearing and traffic noises in the background. So he had put her on speakerphone. “You’ll have to come in. How quickly can you be at the State Capitol?”

The Capitol? Teresa’s thoughts went wild and her mouth dry. She swallowed. No. And to Cho she repeated: “No. Well yes, I’ll get ready right now. And I’ll have to drop Megs off. Maybe in forty minutes, if the traffic is ok. But … Cho, that’s not what I’m thinking, tell me it’s not.”

She heard her boss sigh. “It is. Another shooting. APD told me there are several victims. They also found a rifle still pointing down at the park in front of the State Capitol in a nearby building. See you there.”

The main path through the park had been cleared of all civilians when Teresa arrived fifty minutes later. Forty minutes had simply been unrealistic.

Umpteen vans, SUVs and police cars were parking on the street, blocking the road for traffic. The familiar yellow tape police officers had spanned between the trees that were lining the path was flapping in the wind. And in the background above all of them towered the dome of the capitol. 

Even with pedestrians being gone the park was full of people. EMT, APD, forensics and what not were swarming around busy like ants making it difficult for Teresa to find her own people. And the noise! 

But EMTs being busy was a good sign actually, she thought. That meant this time there were more survivors among the victims. Still she couldn’t keep from blaming herself, maybe, if she hadn’t been so sure the shooting at the Cultural Center had been about Gregson, they would’ve looked into the possibility of an act of madness earlier. And all this might have been avoided. Those people howling in pain or crying might be happily enjoying the end of the Fast Half run. Maybe go to a party later. It was Sunday after all. But already Teresa had seen at least one person still lying on the pathway. That EMT hadn’t moved him could only mean that he would never again go to any kind of party. He was dead and Teresa couldn’t escape the thought that she was to blame for this. 

If she'd not insisted the case had to be connected to Gregson. Maybe they would already have a lead to catch the shooter and none of them would be standing here right now. If she had just kept an open mind. If she was a better agent. Maybe. Maybe she would've been able to help that older couple at the Lake Trail to get into safety in time. Maybe her idea that the case was connected to Gregson in any way was just, as Polark had implied the other day, her trying to rectify that she had survived where it would have been her duty to save others.

She found herself standing in the middle of the taped-off area, turning around, to see if she could spot any of her colleagues, when her eyes fell on the office block in the distance. There was a clearing of trees behind a park bench and the building had a perfect view at the path Teresa was currently standing on. Feeling her mouth going dry she turned away from the sight quickly. There was no one who would do them harm in this building any longer. APD had already found the room the shooter had used - and his rifle!

Finally she spotted her boss a few meters behind the yellow tape barrier talking to a crowd of press people. He was turning away from their confronting questions right when Teresa started making her way over to him. She saw him noticing her before he lifted the yellow tape to step into the area and away from any ever so eager journalist, when he halted and put his phone to his ear.

But the conversation was already over, when Teresa reached him. Cho’s face was grim, his lips tight. “There you are”, he stated, blunt as always. “We have to leave this place for forensics. Someone from APD just found another body, I’d like to have a look at.” He was talking more to his phone than to Teresa, texting something at the same time, and even as he did so, he was striding across the crime scene to the number of cars parked at the street.

“Where?”, Teresa asked, hurrying after him and ducking underneath the tape before stepping out onto the street.

“Trail me” And without another word he turned away from her to the SUV she recognized as his private car.

Cho must have waited for her to get to her own car, which was parked further away from the actual crime scene due to her arriving so late. It was hard to follow him through the city’s traffic nevertheless. Her boss didn’t seem to care much about speed limitations and one time she thought she had lost him for good, when a traffic light in front of them turned red, forcing Cho to stop the SUV.

Teresa exhaled in relief. Sure, she probably could hand any speeding ticket she received for this trip right on to Cho, but that wasn’t what she was concerned about. She was starting to wonder exactly how long the light would remain red, when her phone rang.

Confused to see Cho's name on her car's display, she picked up. "What's up?", she asked, just as the traffic light turned green again and his car in front of her started moving.

"Thought I'd fill you in on what we found at the Capitol."

"Ok"

"The victims are all runners or bystanders, no one standing out. Nobody could tell us what happened exactly when. There have been multiple grazes, only one fatal shot, and no instant kill. EMT were still trying to revive the victim when we arrived - died of heart failure. It all seems like pretty sloppy shots to me.

Then cops from APD found the rifle in the bureau block one can see down from the park. No fingerprints anywhere, they tell me, but a bunch of feathers on the floor beneath the window like we found it in the hotel near the Lady Bird Lake. I told Wylie and Polark to stay and talk to security again.”

Teresa nodded, while she cut a corner, trying not to lose sight of her boss’ SUV. They were heading out of downtown and in the direction of the southern suburbs. Then she realized that Cho couldn’t see her. “Ok, thanks”, she said into silence. “And what are we heading to now?”

“Dead FBI agent on parental leave. Wife called APD while we were at the Capitol. To shots right into the chest. A shiny dark feather stuffed into the uppermost buttonhole of his shirt. I told local PD’s, I want to know about everything that turns up involving feathers of any kind and here we go. Also this guy talked about the Cultural Center Shooting on the radio last Friday.”

“I heard about that, but I didn’t listen to the actual interview. Thought it was a former FBI agent, though.”, Teresa frowned.

“That's what they said on the radio.” 

She rolled her eyes when her boss ended the call. Typically Cho. Wouldn't say anything that might contain too many details.

It didn't take long after that till they reached their destination though. Cho parked right in front of a house that didn't look too different from the suburban house she had been living in herself so many years ago. 

Walking over to the entry of the house, Teresa noticed the prowl car parked in front of Cho's SUV. Sighing, she lifted the yellow tape and stepped into the tiny front yard. Cho and a police officer were waiting for her on the doorstep. 

The look on the officers face was one of annoyance. "Look, guys I don't think we need the FBI here, I know it's one of your men, but honestly this is not that unusual around here. Looks like a failed looting to me: The wife says she took the car to drive to a friend and so the invader thought the house was empty. He jumped the garden gate and broke in the back door, but was stopped by the husband. So he shot him and fled, I would say. We couldn't find any sign that something might have been stolen."

He sighed at Cho's blank face. "Now, come on. We're in a rich area here, and even though we've got a high police presence around here, we can't be everywhere."

"Where's the body?" Cho asked, ignoring everything the man had just told him.

"In the kitchen. It's just through the hallway, real easy to-" but Cho had already pushed past him.

Teresa gave the officer a quick smile. "And the wife?"

"Living room. Is your boss always that cold?" 

"’just likes to stay professional and not draw his conclusions too fast." _Something that would do you some good_ , she thought but kept from saying it, when she already heard Cho calling her name and went past the officer herself.

The picture in the kitchen was as the officer had described it. Timothy Randall was laying on his back right in front of the kitchen counter, two dark red spots close to his heart showing where the bullets had hit him. A shattered plate at the ground to his side and the clean and dirty dishes to both sides of a sink filled with dirty water indicated that he must have been surprised while cleaning up the family’s breakfast. It certainly looked like the intruder had intended to rob the place and was scared off by his own action of shooting the house owner - if it weren’t for the feather that was at the place Cho had told her about. Uppermost bottom hole of the shirt. It looked exactly like those they had found at the hotel close to the Cultural Center.

She looked around to her boss, who nodded sharply and turned around away from the body. Together the two of them followed the sound of sobs to the living room of the place, where they found Timothy’s wife melted into tears and her child in a moses basket, that the woman rocked slightly, while she was obviously trying to control her sobbing.

Cho knocked against the open door, before they made their entry and Mrs. Randall lifted her head. Looking at the two agents she swallowed before she pressed out a faint ‘ _hello_ ’.

“Hi”, Teresa replied softly, “We know, you have already talked to the police officers, but we’d need to ask you some questions as well.”

The woman nodded valiantly and brushed a strand of her dark curls out of her face. “Of course. Please, sit down.” She swallowed again, before she pointed over to the other side of the couch she was sitting on.

Teresa followed her invitation and noticed her boss drawing a chair over for himself. “Ma’am, I was told, your husband was shot sometime between ten and twelve o’clock.”, he stated, “I need to ask you this: Where you were during this time?”

The pain Mrs. Randall felt at the question was showing in her eyes when she looked back at Cho without answering. Finally she took a deep breath before she replied: “You have to ask, hm?” Sighing she added: “Well, I suppose you do. I was at my friend’s place, Lisa Mertin. She … she is Rosa’s godmother. We - that’s me and Rosa here", she motioned to the baby, "we went there for … I don’t even know how long anymore. Anyway we had basically just arrived as a neighbor called me, telling me he’d heard shots fired at our place and was worried. So I called the police and … and drove back here myself.” She looked up at Cho, but then turned her attention to Teresa. “They say … the police officers said that person tried to rob us? Is that true?”

Teresa sighed. “We can’t say yet.”

“But … but whatever happened, you will investigate this, won’t you?” The woman sniffed another time, but her posture was straightening. “I mean, not to offend these people, but Timothy, he was one of you. He deserves that the FBI is making sure whoever did this will be caught. He used to complain about the sloppy officers he sometimes had to work with.”

“APD’s people are doing their best”, Teresa intervened, not liking the direction this kind of talk usually took. “And all of us want to get the person who is responsible for this.”

Mrs. Randall nodded. “Good. You know, he went to this interview on Friday. It was on the radio. I told him he didn’t need to go, but he was so determined to defend those poor FBI agents dealing with that shooting at the Cultural Center. Said the news people were talking shit about them, not giving their work any credit at all and … and that he was sure they were doing everything they could. And now, today … there was that other shooting at the State’s Capitol. I’m sure he would’ve found a way to make those FBI people look good even after this. He really believed in his job. He deserves you guys to take care of this now.”

Teresa felt a lump building in her throat and was glad her boss went on with the interview, asking the woman if she knew of anyone wishing her husband ill. But she didn’t - “obviously besides the criminals he had dealt with.”, she added, making Cho nod. She also denied the question, if feathers had any kind of meaning to her or her husband.

Returning home this evening, Teresa felt exhausted. When Cho and her had returned to their office in the FBI building, after talking to all the possible witnesses who lived along the same road as the Randall’s, the whole team had listened to the interview Timothy had given to that journalist of the local Austin radio station, but it didn’t offer any new leads to them. And after all, though the feather made it possible that the case was connected to the shootings, it didn’t exclude other explanations.

Still sitting in the car in front of the house she ran her hands over her face. Due to the late hour she hadn’t picked up Megs. She had called Mrs. Ellis and learned that her daughter was already sleeping tight, so the two of them had decided that the woman would bring Megs to kindergarten with her own son the next morning. And after her day at kindergarten Megs would be picked up by Haley, who luckily had a provisional driver’s licence and therefore was able to drive out to their place. Teresa had already called the girl to notify her that her first day of taking care of Megs on her own might be a long one, as the team had just received another case. She hadn’t told the teenager exactly what case they were working on though. 

But the reality behind this hadn’t hit Teresa till this very moment. She wouldn’t see her daughter for almost a whole day. A thought that made her jaw muscles tighten up. Noticing this she sighed. It had been the right decision to leave Megs where she was right now. She was well taken care of and during the last days she and Leo had once again become friends. It was almost a miracle how kids could overcome their differences that easily. But then again they fought over so little things as well.

Five minutes went by and Teresa didn’t feel any more eager to leave the car and enter the lonely house in front of her. The windows were dark and cold when at least the living room window should have been lit by the soft glow of Patrick’s reading light. One couldn’t see the window from the driveway, but the light used to shimmer on the patch of grass to the left side of the house. A sight Teresa had become accustomed to and as she noticed now had been looking forward to when she returned home in the dark. It had always been there. Because Patrick wouldn’t go to bed before she had returned home.

But now the cold bright headlights of her Chevy were the only thing lighting up the yard. Their shine was falling right on the wooden cabin standing to the side of the pond. That little cabin, Patrick had planned to turn into their house, she remembered, chuckling silently. 

And for a while it had been what one could call their country retreat - though both of them decided calling it that sounded way too high-class. And in reality the cabin was anything but. With no proper bathroom or running water. But with a gas cooker and a small fireplace, that they never needed to use. And with the addition to their family on his mind Patrick had already made new plans, very much to Teresa’s delight. 

He had gotten in contact with some construction people and arranged for them to build them a log house. Not without his help obviously, but still. It seemed he would’ve preferred to build the place all on his own, but he had been of a mind to get it finished before their child was born, so he couldn’t be the only person working on it. The plan didn’t work out perfectly but when Megs was three months old, Teresa paid her final rent on her place in the suburbs. 

Had someone back in California told her that she would move out to the country, she would’ve rolled her eyes at him. A log house with nothing but wild nature around it for at least half a mile? No thanks. Even when Patrick had told her about his idea, half of her had hoped he would give up on it sooner or later. 

But he hadn’t. And by now that modern country house made her heart lit up. It had done so from the very first day she had set foot in it. There was just something about the wooden walls that gave the whole building a feeling of comfort. Warmth. The perfect place to raise her child and feel at home.

And the little cabin had been turned into their guest cabin. The house wasn’t big enough for any extra rooms, so this arrangement was perfect. And it was certainly a very lovely guest cabin thanks to the changes Patrick had made on it. It also got an addition that turned into Patrick’s shop. An idea that worked out perfectly - not that the blonde was particularly good at craftsmanship, but he wasn’t bad either and with every black and blue finger he improved. He had started with a crib for Megs, designed them their beautifully carved dinner table - which took him at least a year to finish - and more and more things. He even sold some pieces of his work to members of the community. Not that it was hard for Patrick to sell anything. Cho kept on saying he would sell a cat to a mouse if he just tried. Lately he had built Megs a swing that was now hanging in the tree closest to their porch. The girl loved it. 

With all the lively memories filling her mind, Teresa dreaded the thought of stepping into that empty house only more. She had hoped so badly for Patrick to return soon, that his silence to her made her heart ache. Partly probably as she blamed herself that he had left in the first place. And his reaction only made her worry about what would happen should she actually get killed. During her work for the FBI or not. If losing her mom had taught her anything than that it could happen anytime. There was no way to prevent it.

Sighing, she finally left the car. She could not help that her husband wasn’t waiting for her nor that her daughter was sleeping at a different place tonight. Thinking about making herself a late night snack, made her stumble into the kitchen, but seeing the disaster Megs and her had created while baking those belated christmas cookies she backed out of it as fast as she could and shut the kitchen light. There was no way she would clean this up right now, she was way too tired. 

Thinking of poor Haley who would need to use the kitchen tomorrow, Teresa got her phone out of her pocket to write to the girl that she didn’t need to clean everything up. That was her own job - so if Haley just managed to make herself and Megs some lunch and, depending on the hour of Teresa’s return, dinner as well, it would be more than perfect. She had just sent the message, when her phone showed up a notification for a new message by _Patrick Jane_!

She stared at the name for what felt like eternity before she hastily opened the chat. The text wasn’t long. For the shortness of it it might as well have been written by Cho. But the words made her heart beat faster.

_[I’m coming home. Be careful. I love you.]_

Teresa read the three sentences multiple times. Not sure how exactly she should feel right now. There was relief, for sure, but also annoyance, even anger. And of course the question of what made him come back now. And how would they deal with their differences when he was back? The text also didn’t tell her when she should expect him home. After over one and a half weeks he could have traveled anywhere with the Airstream.

She tried to answer but nothing she typed into the phone sounded right. Calling him felt wrong too. She wouldn’t beg him for more information and it was him who made the decision not to speak on the phone, so he might, once again, not pick up anyway. Also there was the chance of them arguing again and she didn’t feel like that either. She was too tired for that. So instead she turned the screen off. Patrick was on his way home. Whatever that meant. 

Standing in the dark she noticed how cold it was inside the house. Not a big surprise considering that Megs and her had left it during the early afternoon and the fire had already been low by then.

She decided to skip making a new fire as she was only here for the night herself. But laying in bed didn’t feel right either. The cold only showed her how lonely she was in a bed that was meant for two persons and images of the park in front of the State Capitol mixed with what had happened over a week ago close to the Cultural Center. Teresa was exhausted enough to sleep, but her brooding made sure it wouldn’t come anytime soon.

Sighing she got out of bed again and changed. She needed to do something to ease her mind. When she stepped out of the house the fresh air made her shiver but at the same time the chill reawakened some of her energy. Little white fluffs landed on her skin. Wet and cold. Snow.


	6. Familiar Faces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally another update! I hope, all of you had a good week.
> 
> It's chapter six now and as I said before this one marks the end of the first 20% of this story - or around that at least.  
> I've honestly been kinda anxious about posting this.  
> Well, it is the chapter that gave the story its name and I sure hope you will still be with me after this one.
> 
> Once again, thank you very much for your support!  
> It's very motivating and kind, even though I feel like a rotten thing for not keeping to my update schedule. And right now I can't promise this to change during the next couple weeks. So sorry in advance! 
> 
> I really hope you'll enjoy this chapter, though. :D

# Familiar Faces

Despite her rather short rest, when Teresa woke early on Monday morning, she still felt better recovered than after any other night since her fight with Patrick. The pain that had returned to her leg sometime during her workout had calmed down again and the remainder was just like aching muscles - it told her that she had done something. And running had felt so good. Sure, it would have been even better had she been able to run at top speed, but her leg didn’t allow for that yet. Nevertheless the workout had managed to bring her mind to ease, so when she had finally gone to bed she fell asleep without rolling from side to side, brooding. 

And compared to the freezing temperatures outside the empty bed didn't feel as cold as it had done the nights before.

Pushing the thought away, that the night would have felt warmer still had she been cuddling up to a man, holding her in a tight hug, she got into the shower. Not because she really had to, since she had taken a shower just about six hours ago, but because she felt that a fresh shower was a good way to start a new week. Whatever this week might have in store for her. 

But then again, what could probably make things worse now? Tomorrow it would be two weeks since Patrick had left in his tin can of an RV to God knew where. Yes he had texted he would come back. But when? And what would happen then? She was ready to drag him over the coals for having left, but then again, fighting wouldn’t change anything. It would not change, what her job meant to her, would not change, that after one year of maternity leave she had felt trapped in the house, needed something with a purpose. It would not change that waiting for her injury to finally heal while sitting around doing literally _nothing,_ she had felt exactly the same way again. But it also wouldn’t change that Patrick wished for her to lay the job down.

A job she was proud of. A job she loved. A job, she was short of losing too, though. Whatever that shrink said, Teresa felt it: The woman was waiting for her to collapse - why else should she be asking her about Megs? And being honest to herself, Teresa had to admit that deep inside her there was a part that wanted to - wanted to let someone else handle those problems this time. But there was no one. And she was perfectly able to handle her life herself. Certainly, perfectly able to deal with all this but…

But not with her daughter being afraid of playing hide-and-seek with another kid. Not with Megs turning into this silent, depressed child of a split family. She swallowed down the building lump in her throat. She didn’t want her daughter to grow up in a broken home. To feel like she had to fix something that wasn’t hers to fix.

Thanking God for Haley's good influence on her daughter, Teresa stepped out of the shower to get dressed for work. 

The kitchen didn't look any better this morning and while waiting for her coffee to be ready, Teresa decided to clean up just a bit. As much as she could till the machine made that loud steaming and bubbling sound, that signaled that the water was almost empty and her coffee had been poured into the cup. 

Good. Teresa threw the rag into the sink, cleaned it and put it to the side. Only then did she take her coffee to sit at the table. She wasn't particularly hungry, but knowing better she got back up and made herself a bowl of cereal. Nothing fancy at all. The premixed muesli stuff she had bought at Walmart's was good enough and Megs liked it too, so it had become her go-to for quick breakfast routines.

Sitting back on her chair, stirring the cereal around with a spoon Teresa felt the depression of the last night creeping back into her heart. It was so silent without her daughter being there with her. Even if the kid didn't talk as much as she had done before Patrick had left, she still rarely did nothing. And after all, she had started to talk more again.

The same rational feeling that had made her prepare herself breakfast, also convinced her into eating it. 

Trying to back down the feeling of loneliness that was grasping for her heart she reminded herself that there had been a long time in her life that she couldn’t imagine going through the morning routine with someone else. Let alone with a husband and a child of hers. Deliberately or not, she had pushed any man away who had even tried to get close to her. Needed the feeling of independence. Partners that stuck around for too long seemed to suck the energy out of her.

She sighed. It didn’t help. The cereal still tasted stale. Briefly she thought about turning on the radio to make the silence go away, when the spoon that she was just lifting to her mouth fell back into the bowl with a clank. Milk splashed everywhere, but she didn’t mind it. The thought that had just passed her mind made everything else seem faded out. 

Hastily she got the rag out of the kitchen to clean up the mess and emptied the coffee. The muesli would just have to wait in the fridge till she returned home. She rushed into the bathroom to brush her teeth and check that she looked acceptable for work. Every passing minute felt like she was losing precious time. 

She had basically raised three brothers. How could she have been so blind? And the strange behavior of the wife. Looking back now, if Teresa was right, it made total sense. But both, Cho and her had just accepted it back then. Social anxiety and having federal agents at one’s house weren’t a mixture making it easy for a person to show their best face.

Driving to the FBI headquarters in Austin she had a hard time sticking to the speed limit and found herself cursing a driver in front of her, who seemed to be blind to the green traffic light.

At the parking lot she took a deep breath to calm her spirits before she stepped out of the car. There was no use in shouting at her colleagues - even though the slow going lift sure got her spirits rising once more.

Stepping out of the lift she found their level surprisingly empty. But a second later she remembered that she was remarkably early herself. Praying inside, she speedily strode through the hallway to the bullpen. Seeing Cho sitting in his chair, his attention directed at his computer made her release the breath she had been holding.

She was walking right to his desk, when a friendly female voice wishing her a good morning made her look around for the person it belonged to. Only then did she notice the woman standing at the desk next to Wylie's, putting up photos. She was tall, not as tall as Van Pelt but certainly close. A pony tail was holding back what had to be a mane of curly copper brown hair tightly, giving the woman a stern look, but the smile she gave Teresa was genuine.

“Morning”, she replied curtly though, already turning to her boss. “Who is she?”, she hissed under her breath.

“Special Agent MacKenna. New team member.”, the man answered without a blink, his attention still on the screen. “What are you doing here, Lisbon? I thought you were -”

“Never mind. I need to talk to you, Cho.”

That got him to turn his attention to her. “Fire away.”

“I want to talk to Terry Gregson again. It’s a hunch, but I got a bad feeling about him this morning. Did you realize how silent it was at theirs when we were there? Ignoring the dogs barking outside of course. But you never would have guessed they have two teenage boys living there. My brothers were certainly never that quiet for long - or if they were I knew I had to check to make sure they weren’t hatching something.” 

“You say they weren't there?”

She paused. “I would be surprised if they had been. But then again my brothers sure weren’t the most civilized bunch. I can’t be sure, but I don’t want to miss something.” She paused, waiting for Cho to say something, but as he remained silently looking at her she repeated: “I know it’s a hunch, but-” If Jane had taught her anything then to follow that kind of a feeling.

Her boss nodded. “Ok. I would come with you, but I just received a message from the ASAC. He’s gonna meet the mayor and wants me to come with him.” He turned around to the woman, who had stopped arranging the setting of her work place to her liking and had evidently been listening to their conversation. “Forget about the conference, MacKenna. You're with Lisbon. You can study the case file on your drive out to Driftwood.”

The woman nodded sharply and pulled her jacket from her chair. Not a minute later she was standing next to Lisbon, carrying the file under her arm she asked: “Ready?”

“You bet.”

They took one of the FBI's SUVs and Teresa was surprisingly glad MacKenna hadn’t read the file yet. This way there couldn’t be an argument about who was driving. 

Once they had left the buzzing city traffic Teresa was tossing sideways glances at her new team member. She looked like the special agent she was, confident and going through the file with routine. Only Teresa couldn’t find it in her to like the idea of her being there. Back when Cho had given her the woman’s file she had been looking forward to a new female work partner, and was glad to get assistance in their current case. But as things stood now, MacKenna’s presence meant that Cho could possibly cut Teresa from the team if he thought it was necessary. And she was certain he would. He might not like it, but her boss was perfectly able to make hard decisions. Normally Teresa respected him for that. It also proved he was the right person in his position. 

And to add to her discontent the drive to the Gregsons’ place right out of Driftwood was apparently not long enough to keep the woman silent.

“The boss seems ok to talk to, hm?”, she said after she’d put the file in the glove box.

Teresa glanced at her again. “Cho's a great boss, if you’re asking about that.”, she replied then, turning her full attention back to the street.

“Happy to hear that. He seemed a bit stiff to me, when I first met him this morning. Made me feel like I was doing something wrong, to be honest. Then I take it, he’s just like that in the beginning?”

“Oh no”, Teresa found herself chuckling. “That’s him. Right on. He won’t change, but he’s not being mean. Don’t worry.”

“Great. What about the rest of the team then? They’re good colleagues too I hope.”

Teresa gave her yet another glance. “You’ll sure have your own take on that after a couple days.”

“Never too early for a warning, but you’re probably right.” MacKenna looked out of the window for a while before she turned back to look at Teresa. “So … you’re married?”, she asked after some time. She had noticed the lighter colored band around Teresa’s left ring finger then.

“Yes.” Teresa felt that her new colleague was going to add another question and so she blunted: “Listen, I don’t fancy discussing my private life while at work. A good habit you might like to pick up.”

“If you say so.” MacKenna paused, looking out of the window again before she added: “Then there’s a chance for a beer and a chat after work?”

“No.”

“Okay", MacKenna stretched out the word and Teresa could sense her looking sideways at her. “Guess, now I know why you and the boss like each other.”, she muttered more to herself than to Teresa, but she heard her anyway and had to suppress the urge to roll her eyes.

"Why did you leave Waco?" Teresa blunted back.

"And here I was thinking you didn't like speaking about private life." But she sighed and continued nevertheless: "I couldn't trust two of my colleagues to have my back in a tricky situation. Decided I wouldn't work like that any longer."

Teresa looked at her briefly, but the woman was looking out the passenger window now, turning away from Teresa. She wished to ask her why she hadn’t trusted her team and how that could possibly be connected to her private life but instead she said: “We’re nearly there. They have at least one dog guarding their property, so we won’t ask any difficult questions till they let us in the house. We don't even know whether his kids weren't at a friend's place last time. Take it slow.”

The woman to her right nodded. “Noted”

 _Good._

They pulled up at the side of the country road just a little later. The place looked pretty much the same it had done the last time Teresa had been there. She could spot a few dogs in the kennels.

Taking a deep breath, Teresa opened the door of the car, decided differently and put her hair up in a bun before she left the vehicle. MacKenna was waiting for her at the start of the driveway.

“First day on my new job and I’m already out in the field doing interviews. If that ain’t great, I don’t know what is. I expected I wouldn’t get out of the office for a week”, the woman remarked, grinning at Teresa, who once again didn’t see the need to answer. The brunett’s positive way was beginning to annoy her.

They walked along the driveway in silence, MacKenna probably noticing the rather grumpy mood Teresa was in and finally keeping quiet. Reaching the gate to the yard the two women stopped. The hitch was flapped back, the gate only leaning in place. And no dog warned them with snarling barks not to dare enter his territory.

"Guess they're off duty today", MacKenna mumbled looking at the warning sign on the gate. "I can't see any bell so we'll just go in, yes?"

Teresa nodded. The open gate had caused her jaw to tighten. Observing the yard she used her left hand to open the gate far enough she and MacKenna could step through. Her right had automatically moved to her side to be nearer to her gun, should she need it.

She felt the tension in her body rising as they were crossing the yard. Not without reason. Already close to the front door, they were stopped in their tracks by a man shouting.

"HEY! YOU'RE TRESPASSING ON PRIVATE PROPERTY, LADIES!"

Teresa looked up, searching for the man. And found him looking out of one of the second floor windows a hunting rifle directed at them.

"Terry Gregson!", she yelled up at him, her heart beating in her chest. "We're FBI, we are here…"

"I know who you are! And if you don't turn around and leave my land NOW, I'll open fire!"

"We are here to help you!", Teresa shouted back. Inching closer to the building and hoping MacKenna did the same.

"HELP?! I don't need help! And I told you to LEAVE MY LAND!"

He fired in exactly the moment, Teresa jumped into the cover the door frame of the front door granted her. MacKenna was already there, leaning around the wooden frame, returning fire. Once, twice. Then she leaned back herself, the two women so close, Teresa could hear her colleagues rigid breathing. She got her own gun out of it's holster.

"He left the window.", MacKenna muttered.

 _Darn._ Teresa nodded. "The stairs are on the other side of the hallway. There's no cover for us in there." She thought for a moment, remembering the glass front of the living room of the place. It was risky, but they couldn’t wait for assistance here. Another shot fell, hitting the ground close to their feet, Terry was back and Teresa had made her decision. "Can you give me cover fire? I'll get in at the back and call for you when it's safe to enter from here."

She felt the nod of the other woman more than she saw it. "You got it." And the brunette leaned around the door frame again, starting to shoot in short intervals, distracting Terry Gregson as best she could.

Teresa's heart was going faster than a race horse. It was now or never. Grabbing her Glock tighter she started sprinting. The pain shot back into her right leg immediately, causing her to flinch and nearly stumble. But she didn't allow herself to slow down. Couldn't. Every shot that was fired behind her felt like it was going straight for her back. Then she was around the corner. Dogs barked. Her blood rushed through her veins. Her breath coming in quick pants.

Jogging now she stayed close to the wall of the building, dreading the moment Terry would decide to leave MacKenna where she was and go for her instead. This side of the house offered no place of cover at all. But she could still hear gun fire at the front of the house. The shots didn't fall as rapidly as before but there still seemed to be a continuous exchange.

Nevertheless she edged slowly around the next corner. Not willing to make a mistake that could cost her or her new colleague their lives. Looking through the glass front she was relieved to find that the room behind it wasn’t occupied. 

Faster now she went onto the porch and to the glass door, that was inconveniently farther away from her side of the building than she had remembered - close to the two couches in front of the TV. Finally reaching it, she instinctively pulled at the knob. The door was closed. She cursed herself. What had she expected? Biting her teeth together, she used her elbow to break the glass near the doorknob. Once, twice and with the third blow it shattered, sharp pieces of it falling down on the other side of the door. 

Fitting her hand through the opening Teresa twisted the knob from the inside. The lock clicked and she found herself releasing the breath she had been holding back. She was just about to swing the door open, when she noticed the silence coming from the front of the house. She looked up, away from her hand still reaching through the break in the glass. Nobody in sight. 

The alarming silence lasted while Teresa carefully pulled her hand back and let herself into the living room. Entering the building she looked up to the entry of the living room. The shock made her freeze. 

Terry Gregson stood in the opening to the hallway, an empty expression on his face. "I did tell you to leave my land.", he said, quietly this time, before he lifted his rifle, aiming at her.

She let herself fall down behind the sofa to dodge the shoot. And screamed out in pain. Tears shot into her eyes, her hip feeling like it was burning in flames.

Wincing with pain she tried to pull herself up with the strength of her arms. The sudden burst of pain had made her let go of her gun and the momentum of the fall had sent it to the other side of the three seater. Terry didn't make a sound. Meaning he probably hadn't noticed she'd lost her weapon.

Briefly closing her eyes against the pain, she willed her legs to push her forward. Stretching out her hand she felt the polymer handle at the tips of her fingers. She needed to get up to her knees, to get a good grip on it, though. She was lucky. Despite the all consuming pain her right leg supported her as well as it should, making her thank God that her hip didn't get damaged as much as it felt like.

A heartbeat later she felt the comforting plastic back in her hands. Still in a kneeling position she tried to peek around the edge of the couch. A shot fell and she winced back. A bullet hitting the ground at the place her hand had been just a second earlier caused the wooden plank to burst and splinter.

BANG!

The unexpected sudden sound made Teresa flinch back again. She heard steps but with the blood rushing in her ears she couldn't identify where Terry was moving to. Carefully she crawled around the corner of the couch, fighting against the stabbing pain in her body. The man wasn't to be seen anywhere in the big living room.

A plank close to her position creaked and she turned around rapidly, looking directly up into Terry Gregson's maniac eyes. The muzzle of his rifle pointing right at her chest. Teresa's gun hand useless on the ground, supporting her weight.

"Goodbye, Special Agent Lisbon." 

The shot made her ears ring.

Patrick lifted a smiling Megs into the air. Teresa could hear the girl's laughter. Smell the fresh spring air. Her heart was beating against her chest. She wanted to see them again, the fear of losing them growing in her, so big it hurt.

But there was no physical pain. Not besides her darn right side protesting against the kneeling position. 

She _hadn't_ been shot.

Noticing how she had instinctively closed her eyes, she opened them abruptly. She was still in the living room of the Gregsons' house. Terry was laying on the ground close to her, moaning. Blood was dying the shirt above his right shoulder red.

It was pure muscle memory that made her move. Pushing him further down with one knee on his torso, she forcefully pulled the man's arms behind his back. She ignored the gasping sound he made and reached for her handcuffs. Only when they clicked close, did she growl: "Terry Gregson. I'm arresting you for the shootings at the Mexican American Cultural Center and the Texas State Capitol, as well as the attempted murder of two FBI agents."

He didn't say anything while she read him his rights and he remained silent as she released her grip on his hands. Slowly she moved away from him and used the rim of the couch to pull herself up.

Hearing steps beside her she turned around, this time finding herself looking at MacKenna.

The woman looked at Terry still laying on the ground before she turned to Teresa, her eyebrows raised. "Didn't you say something about taking it slow?"

Teresa gave her a brief grin. Her heart rate was slowing to an acceptable pace again, the tension leaving her body. Her eyes fell on the gun her colleague was holding in her right hand. And finally she understood what had happened. 

The bang must had come from the front door. And the shot, the shot hadn't come from the rifle but from the gun MacKenna was still holding onto. 

"Good shot”, Teresa pointed out and then, meaning it with every cell in her body, she added: “Thank you."

"Anytime" 

They stood there for a while, the only thing disturbing the silence being their own breathing.

Then a frown formed on MacKenna's face and she asked: "You hurt?"

Teresa shook her head.

"You sure screamed like you were."

"Oh", Teresa paused for a moment before she admitted: "I broke my right leg and the side of my pelvis pretty badly in a car accident quite a few weeks ago. It did hurt like hell when I fell on it right now. But it's fine, nothing to worry about."

The brunette's eyes darted to Teresa's hands still supportingly braced against the backrest of the couch.

"It's fine", Teresa insisted.

MacKenna gave her a doubting look but went on without arguing: "I called for backup when I was outside.” She looked down at a watch on her right wrist. “They should be here in about fifteen to twenty minutes."

Teresa nodded. They would wait. And for that she could let herself sink onto the sofa, while MacKenna was making sure their suspect didn't bleed out.

They had given her crutches. Oh, how she hated those things. But she certainly wouldn't argue as long as Cho didn't insist she would stay at the hospital. She had tried to discuss the necessity of her going there in the first place. But you couldn't win a fight with Cho.

The doctors had also opted for some stronger painkillers, but she had refused them point blank. She needed to be able to keep her mind.

While sitting in the waiting room she was left with her own thoughts and finally she had pulled out her phone. She had been playing with the idea of texting Patrick, but in the end she just put her phone back into her pocket. She couldn’t form all those different feelings inside her into a sentence that made any sense, much less could she turn it into something that would fit a text message.

He had said he was coming back. That had to be enough for now, even though it didn’t feel like that. Just that one moment had shaken her to the bones. The brief fear of losing him and Megs.

The blinds of the interrogation room she was standing in front of were closed. Reaching for the door, she shook her head to get rid of the feeling of loss, at least till she would step out of this room again. She also left the crutches outside. She could stand and walk without them and she knew Cho wouldn’t come running into her interrogation, even if he didn’t approve. 

Recalling the latest insights in the case she opened the door and entered. The team currently searching every inch of the old brick house had found a freshly digged grave at the back. It contained a dead German Shepherd, shot right in the head. Terry's wife wasn't available when they called the number that was saved in the landline device. Both of the kid's phones sent them straight to voicemail.

Seeing Terry made Teresa's blood boil. He was looking straight at her when she entered the room. His lips tight, his eyes cold. Only three hours ago he had been willing to shoot her while looking her directly in the eyes, just like now.

Teresa dropped the file she had been holding onto the table, far enough from Terry’s still cuffed hands so he couldn’t reach for it. Her right side hurt, but she didn’t pull the chair out from under the table. She rather remained standing.

"So", she said sharply, "care to tell us why you were aiming shots at two federal agents this morning?"

He held her staring glare, denying her an answer.

"Our people are currently turning your house upside down, Terry. Your fingerprints are being matched with those on the rifle APD officers found in a building close to the Texas State Capitol yesterday. If I were you, I would try talking now."

"There are no fingerprints"

Teresa smiled only so slightly in triumph. Good. "And how would you know that?"

"Gloves. No one would be so stupid as to leave his rifle there if he didn't wear gloves."

"Yeah, we were wondering that. Why you would leave the rifle there in the first place. You should have known officers would find it."

"You didn't see the security at the place, did you? And all those officers along the half mile through the city that people were running. They set up the perimeter seconds after the first shot - you think they would let somebody through who was carrying a TAC-50?"

"A TAC-50?", she repeated. It was the model the officers had found. In fact Teresa had a picture of it in the case file in front of her. And the bullets forensics had found matched it. Not only those they found yesterday, but also the ones from the Cultural Center.

"That’s what I said.”

“So it was you, the shooting. At the State Capitol?”

Terry stared at her again, his eyes still as cold as before. After what seemed like several minutes passing by with the two of them only holding each other's hostile gaze, he finally said: “Don’t tell me you didn’t know that.” They had had a strong case for it, but now they had proof.

Teresa braced herself against the backrest of the chair in front of her, shifting the weight off her right leg. “And the Cultural Center?”

“Yes.”

Feeling herself grimace with disgust she took the first photo from the file. Finley Gregson. She shoved it over for Terry to have a look at it, but he just remained looking straight at her. So words had to do it. “You shot your father?”

“No, there was a second shooter. He shot him.”

“Don’t get sassy with me!”

“Stop asking stupid questions then.”

Teresa took a deep breath. “Tell me, why would a man shoot his own father? And not only that, but three, no four other people, counting the victim at the State Capitol yesterday.”

Briefly she thought there was a hint of sorrow passing his eyes, but she must have been wrong since Terry’s voice was just as uncaring. “I had no choice.”

“You always do.”

“You have a child, Agent Lisbon, yes? A girl, if I recall correctly.”

Her jaw muscles tightened as she tried to remember when she might have mentioned Megs around him. But, of course, he hadn't needed her to. He would have seen her daughter with her at the Lake Trail. Suddenly Teresa felt like shouting at him, letting all her anger and frustration rain down on him, but she didn't do any of the sort. Instead she asked as calmly as her voice would get in this situation: "What would that have to do with anything?"

The man didn't answer. But finally he looked away. She had hit a weak spot.

Tiring of the pain her leg gave her, Teresa pulled the chair out from under the table and slowly let herself sink onto it. It wasn't much better. The pain didn't stem from her leg but her hip this time. She sighed. “How long have Michael and Peter been missing, Terry?”

She could see the tension in his jaw muscles as he answered: “Two weeks and five days.”

Teresa nodded. Counting back she asked: “Since the third of January then?” She didn’t get an answer. “Why didn’t you ask the police for help?”

The man snorted. “Why? Because of all those TV shows telling us, that’s the thing to do? Your child gets kidnapped, and you just trust in Uncle Sam and his policeman to solve it, while you lean back? And then they save your kid just in time because of some miracle? Sorry Ma’am, if that’s what I’m supposed to rely on, I’m not doing it. If my father ever taught me anything then it’s that you folk aren’t trustworthy.” 

Terry looked back at her, his eyes full of icy fury. “Full of shit about morality and what we owe to our country, that’s what you are. But then he went behind my mother’s back to fuck that woman? And he never had the guts to tell any of us he got her pregnant? No. Instead he still told me about himself being the good guy he’d always been, helping out at that veteran hospital now that he was retired. But you already know that was a lie as well - you guys told me. He only went there to see his bitch’s daughter.”

“So you went and killed him? For what?”, Teresa asked, hoping that a straight question would coax him into giving her the answer she needed.

“You know why. I was told I would get my sons back.”

“How did you get the rifle?”

“It was sent to me.”

Teresa sighed. “But your sons were never returned to you?”

“No.”

“So what happened?”

“With the news on Friday evening I received a message on the burner phone I was currently using. It assured me that Mickey and Peter were ok. I had done my job to protect my children. Isn’t that what parents should do?”

“But there were more demands being made.”

Terry smiled at her, sending a cold shiver down her spine. “You people think you are so smart. Of course there were more demands. I had proven myself useful after all. And don’t you think I didn’t know that before. I knew, one day I would end up right where we are now.”

“And you never thought about asking for help? What about your wife? Did she ever ask you about going to the police?”

“She begged me. In the beginning. And she did try talking to the police in Driftwood once. I stopped her. The next day - Tuesday the ninth - we got a package. It had Mickey's golden hair inside. His soft golden locks - with blood on them. They had shaved his head with a knife, making my little boy bleed. That day I knew there was only one way out of this - if there was any.”

Looking into Terry’s eyes was like looking straight into the abyss. Teresa shifted her weight on the chair trying to relieve some of the pain in her hip. Then she took another photo from the file in front of her. It showed Timothy Randall. The man who had given the interview about the FBI’s work on the Cultural Center shooting. “Was he one of the demands too?”

Terry nodded. “Saturday morning I went to get some groceries. When I returned I found King - my dog - shot dead in the yard. Monika was gone. And I had received new instructions. They included killing this man.”

“Ok. You got anything else to tell us? Like how you received those instructions? Was it messages? Letters?”

He shook his head.

“What were the feathers for?”

“No idea.”

Sighing Teresa pointed at the recorder that had been running the whole time. “We will get this printed so you can sign it.” She waited till Terry gave her a sharp nod. “Just for your information, you will very likely get the needle for what you did. Serving your time in a supermax prison till then. Whether we find your family or not, you will never see them again. You wish to change something about that, you better try telling us something useful.”

“I just told you I have nothing more to say. I knew it would end this way. It’s the only chance I have to save my family.”

She nodded, got up and stopped the recording. She turned to Terry. “When I leave this room, your chance at a different ending will be over.”

Teresa picked up pizza on her way home. After the team's meeting, Cho had sent her home, using her first name while pointing out that she could barely stand properly. 

She’d called Haley, to ask the girl, if she wanted a pizza for dinner as well, but the teenager had said she was fine with eating at her own home. Apparently she didn’t get to spend that much time with her family.

And so the babysitter bid them goodbye as soon as Teresa had entered the house and pulled off her jacket. Both girls had stared at her crutches, but luckily Teresa had been able to convince them that she had just taken a wrong step. Or at least Megs didn’t ask any more questions, yet Teresa didn’t like the unhappy face she made.

“My, I sure hope this is a good idea”, Teresa muttered, when she finally settled on one of the chairs at their dinner table and opened the lid of the paper box hiding her pizza.

Megs blinked at her, the first slice of her own pizza already in her tiny hands. “What is a good idea?”

Teresa looked at the girl and then realized what she’d just said. “Oh, I just thought that we - our team - used to have pizza when we closed a case. Well, and as our case now is far from being closed, I just thought me eating pizza might be a bad omen. Silly, really.” She shook her head.

The girl chewed on her bite of pizza, obviously struggling with the idea of an omen. “But”, she said, swallowing, “maybe it means you’ll close it soon. That would be nice! Then you would have to work less!”

Teresa chuckled. “It doesn’t work that way, sweetheart. We rarely have nothing to do. Too many bad people out there, you know?”

“That’s stupid!”

“I couldn't agree more.” But getting paid for doing nothing was an utopian thing.

They ate their pizza silently for a while, till Megs said: “You know what daddy would say about this omen thing?” Teresa knew the answer of course, but smiling she waited for Megs to continue. “He would say it’s just a thing humans made up. Us eating pizza now or not eating it - it doesn’t change anything.”

“And I don’t think it will”, Teresa agreed, still smiling. “How was your day, sweetheart? You and Haley did something fun?”

Megs’ enthusiastic nod warmed her heart. “Yes! Well, she made me help clean the kitchen first, but then we went out to look at the horses that are on that field not far from here. You know, the one we always drive by on our way here?”

Teresa made a mental note to thank the teenager for cleaning the kitchen even though she certainly didn’t had to, she would probably upper her pay for this week. “That sounds great”, she answered her daughter's explanation.

“Haley says she knows a place where I might get some riding lessons. She did ride horses once, you know?”

Teresa lifted her eyebrows at the girl. “You still want to take lessons?” Another thing she had forgotten about. As the girl nodded she sighed. “I’ll try find some time so the two of us can have a look at that place, ok?”

But Megs didn’t look as happy as Teresa had hoped. Eyeing her mother the girl said: “You don’t have to.”

Teresa sighed. “I promise, I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t want to. It was just a very hard day at work today.”

“Okay” Megs ate the last piece of her 8” pizza and played around with the edge of the carton it had been in when she suddenly jumped up. “I forgot to give you something!”, she exclaimed, before leaving the table and running into the hallway and up the stairs to her bedroom, leaving a perplexed Teresa behind her.

She was finished with her own pizza when the girl returned and had just put the two cartons into the garbage. Curiously she looked at the envelope her daughter was holding out to her. 

“Is that from one of your teachers?”, she asked, half afraid she had forgotten about a payment. But that couldn’t be possible. She and Patrick had set up a monthly rate that was to be sent to the kindergarten automatically. Maybe they had changed how much they were charging.

“No”, Megs answered. “When Haley picked me up from kindergarten, we went to feed her car first.” _Feeding her car_ , Teresa felt the smile returning to her face, it was how she had explained to her daughter, what gas stations were for. “A balloon lady there gave this to me. She said I could have the zebra balloon for free, if I gave you this. But as Haley came back from the shop she got really angry that I opened the window of the car to talk to the nice lady. And when she yelled at her, the woman went away without giving me the balloon.”

For a moment the girl looked downcast, but then she seemed to remember the envelope in her hand. “But she made me promise to give you this today. Said, it was really important that you’d get it. She said something bad would happen if I don’t. And that I was not allowed to have the tiniest sneaky peak.”

Her heart beating against her chest, Teresa took the envelope from her daughter’s hand. While glancing at her, she opened it with her fingers, thinking that the two of them would have to have another talk about staying away from strangers. And she would need to talk to Haley, every thought of a tip was rapidly leaving her mind. 

Inside the envelope was a greeting card. Unsure what to make of the matter, Teresa pulled it out. The picture showed the loose drawing of a tiger. 

_As if a child had done it_ , she thought. Framing the drawing were two lines, one on the top and one at the bottom of the cover: 

_What immortal hand or eye_

_Could frame thy fearful symmetry?_

Teresa felt her skin turning up goosebumps. After almost ten years William Blake’s poem still gave her the creeps.

But she was instantly distracted as something fell out of the middle of the card.

She and Megs looked at the ground to their feet. Directly at a dark, green and blue shimmering feather. The sight made Teresa’s heart skip a beat right as her daughter leaned down to pick it up. With a dreading feeling she clapped the card open and read the few sentences written in small calligraphic letters, the blood in her veins freezing with every word.

_Dearest Teresa,_

_you don’t know me, but as you see, I know you._

_This morning, you and your bushy haired colleague from the FBI made me very angry._

_I did try to warn you before, you know, but I had to watch you ignore it._

_I have to ask you not to interfere with my plans anymore._

_See, next time I’ll have to do more than just warn you._

_\- a concerned citizen._

Unsurprisingly there was no signature on the thing, but below the word ‘citizen’ was the one thing Teresa had hoped she would never have to set eyes on again. It was tiny, fitted into what space was left at the bottom of the card. A smiley, red as blood, eyes in a downward angle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yes, and the greeting card mentioned here actually exists.  
> Just google tyger tyger William Blake card or something the like and it will show up. I looked it up myself, it's NOT my creation, I don't own anything about it.


End file.
